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A YEAR IN THE NAVY. 

AMERICA AT WORK. With frontispiece. 

A YEAR IN A COAL MINE. With frontispiece. 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
Boston and New York 



A YEAR IN THE NAVY 



A YEAR 
IN THE NAVY 



. By 
JOSEPH HUSBAND 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1919 



«'»'* 



*-;-H^= 



COPYRIGHT, 1918 AND I919, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY JOSEPH HUSBAND 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



l.d^ 



JUL 29 !9t9 

©CI.A530384 



TO MY WIFE 



PREFACE 

It is my desire in this foreword to call 
particular attention to the splendid ac- 
comphshments of two distinguished offi- 
cers of the United States Navy who with 
rare ability and perseverance in large 
measure created and brought to high effi- 
ciency the great organizations which it 
was their honor to command, organiza- 
tions which proved of the utmost signifi- 
cance to the winning of the war. 

At the Great Lakes Naval Training 
Station, Captain William A. Moffett, 
U.S.N., Commandant, developed not only 
the largest, but unqualifiedly the most 
efficient, naval training establishment 
that the world has ever seen, from whose 
gates thousands of the youth of the Na- 
tion passed on to their duties with the 



viii PREFACE 

ships which made possible the safe trans- 
portation of men and stores across the sea. 
But of equal importance was another 
service of inestimable worth. A thousand 
miles inland, in the great agricultural cen- 
ter of the United States, this station be- 
came under Captain Moffett a power for 
patriotism. Here the Navy became visu- 
alized to that part of the population which 
never before had realized the romance of 
the sea. The spirit of this vast camp of 
fifty thousand men; the enthusiasm and 
discipline of the recruits; the martial mu- 
sic of its great bands and the pervading 
spirit of vigorous patriotism, gave to the 
Middle West a vital and inspiring illus- 
tration of the true worth of military train- 
ing and a suggestion of what its consistent 
continuation might hold in future years 
for the upbuilding of the moral and physi- 
cal fiber of the Nation's youth. The credit 



PREFACE ix 

for this accomplishment belongs primarily 
to Captain Moffett; it was he who made 
the Navy known to inland States which 
heretofore had barely reaUzed its exist- 
ence. 

Across the Atlantic, at Brest, in France, 
under Vice- Admiral Henry B. Wilson, 
U.S.N., another complicated organization 
was built and perfected with equal ability, 
under the diflScult conditions imposed by 
its situation in a foreign land. In the brief 
period of our participation in the war, the 
men of this organization achieved a record 
and a reputation that can but grow with 
passing years. Under the command of 
Vice-Admiral Wilson, the forces of the 
Navy in French waters escorted, with mar- 
velous freedom from disaster, vast stores 
and amighty army through waters infested 
with the submarines of a daring enemy. By 
his rare tact and personal charm a spirit 



X PREFACE 

of cooperation, confidence, and cordiality 
was established between the people of 
France and the naval representatives of ' 
the United States from Brest to the Span- 
ish line. An officer and a gentleman, he 
rendered to his country a quiet service to 
which it is impossible to accord an ade- 
quate recognition. 

To the other officers under whom I 
served at the Great Lakes Naval Training 
Station and on the several ships to which 
I was later attached in foreign waters, I 
wish here to express my deep appreciation 
for their fine spirit of consideration, help- 
fulness, and enthusiasm which enabled me 
to accomplish the more readily the minor 
duties which 1 was qualified to perform. 

It is, indeed, a rare inspiration to have 
known and served under these several 
gentlemen, and the recollection of their 
spirit and unqualified patriotism brings 



PREFACE xi 

the realization that the temper of the 
glorious Navy of the past still lives to-day 
and will live as long as the United States 
endures. 



t 



CONTENTS 

I. Ordinary Seamen, U.S.N. 1 

II. Students of the Sea 36 

III. The Transport 71 

IV. The Freight Convoy 108 
V. Destroyers 139 

VI. Homeward-Bound 156 



A YEAR IN THE NAVY 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 

Forty miles north of Chicago, on the 
high bluffs that overlook Lake Michi- 
gan, the Naval Training Station of the 
Great Lakes stretches a mile back to the 
railroad tracks from a mile frontage on 
the shore; and even beyond the tracks the 
latest additions have crept out on the 
rolling prairie. Here, covering approxi- 
mately three hundred acres, the vast 
camp, with its recent additions to meet 
the war emergency, houses an average 
total of twenty-two thousand men — the 
largest and most complete naval training 
establishment in the world. 

There had been a heavy blizzard in 



2 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

Chicago the first week in January, and 
when, on the eighth, I walked up from 
the railroad station to the great brick en- 
trance, the ground was deep with snow. 
Beyond the iron gates, hundreds of sail- 
ors in white trousers and blue pea-coats 
were piling the snow back from roads 
and sidewalks. From the entrance a long, 
straight road stretched almost to the lake. 
On either side, and back as far as the eye 
could see, the substantial brick buildings 
of the station extended in orderly ar- 
rangement, like the buildings of a modern 
university. At the far end the tall, mas- 
sive clock-tower of the Administration 
Building rose red against the blue winter 
sky. High above it, to the right, the slen- 
der tapering towers of the wireless caught 
their swinging cobwebs of wires up four 
hundred feet against the blue. Below, 
everywhere, the red brick buildings and 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. S 

the glitter of sun-touched snow in zero 
air. 

In the recruiting building a long line of 
men already were waiting to swear their 
loyalty to Uncle Sam's Navy, and merci- 
less hostility to his enemies. One by one 
we filed into the recruiting-room, where a 
dozen sailors, in neat uniforms with their 
yeomen's ratings on their blue sleeves, 
shamed our motley civilian clothes by 
contrast. Short and tall, stout and thin, 
from Texas, Ohio, Colorado, and Min- 
nesota, in cheap "sport suits," sweaters, 
caps, derbies, every kind of clothing, with 
broken dress-suit-cases, cord-bound, with 
paper bundles, and many with hands 
empty — here was young America in its 
infinite variety. 

To the room where physical examina- 
tions were held we were passed along with 
our identifying papers. Yellow sunshine 



4 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

shone warmly through high windows; 
there was the moist smell of steam radia- 
tors, and the unmistakable and indescrib- 
able smell of naked bodies which threw 
my recollection back to school and college 
gymnasia. At a desk by the window the 
surgeon faced the room; two assistants 
stood beside him; along the side of the 
room three or four yeomen at tables re- 
corded the results of the examination. 

The test was severe, and from our little 
squad of seventeen, two were cast out for 
defective eyesight, one for stricture, two 
for heart trouble, and another for some 
imperfection of the foot. Weighed, meas- 
ured, tested for eyesight and color-sight, 
identified by scars and blemishes, we 
dressed and then recorded our finger- 
prints on the voluminous record, which 
grew as the examination progressed. It 
was late afternoon and the electric lights 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 5 

were lighted when we finally stood before 
the desk of the last officer, and, with right 
hand lifted, touched the Book with our 
left and swore to follow the flag by sea 
or land wherever the fate of war might 
call us. 

In "Two Years Before the Mast" I 
recollect the phrase, "There is not so 
helpless and pitiable an object in the 
world as a landsman beginning a sailor's 
life"; and in that long first day of my ad- 
mission to the Navy I began to realize — 
in but small measure, to be sure — the 
tremendous change that I was soon to 
experience, and the vastness of the educa- 
tion that I must acquire before I could 
hope to be of even slight value in a sailor's 
capacity. 

The Great Lakes Naval Training Sta- 
tion was originally built in 1911, to care 
for sixteen hundred men. But with the 



6 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

declaration of war with Germany, the en- 
largement of its capacity was begun on a 
stupendous scale. South, north, and west 
of the station, additional acreage was 
acquired, and under the direction of en- 
listed engineers and architects complete 
villages or camps were built, increasing 
the capacity of the station to over twenty 
thousand men. Although the new con- 
struction was only for emergency pur- 
poses, on land leased for the duration of 
the war and a year beyond, nothing was 
omitted by which the comfort of the men 
might be increased, their health main- 
tained, and the efficiency of their training 
most expeditiously promoted. They were 
grouped in camps, each holding several 
thousand men; the barracks of each camp 
were arranged about a central square or 
drill-ground, and each camp was provided 
with its central steam-heating plant. 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 7 

mess-kitchen, laundry, dispensary, hospi- 
tal, drill-halls, and such buildings as are 
necessary for the officers and the storage 
and distribution of supplies, as well as a 
system of hot and cold water, complete 
sewerage, electric lighting, and fire hy- 
drants. 

In order that as much of the material 
as possible may be salvaged when the war 
is over and the temporary buildings are 
taken down, each building was so de- 
signed that it might be constructed of 
boards and timbers of stock sizes, without 
cutting, so put together that the buildings 
can be resolved into approximately the 
identical piles of lumber from which they 
were built. 

Each day hundreds of recruits pass 
through Chicago on their way to the sta- 
tion. From every corner of the United 
States, from every walk of life and repre- 



8 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

senting practically every vocation, they 
swell the ever-increasing total of our naval 
forces. For about three months they re- 
main at the station : three weeks in deten- 
tion, then to the main camp for intensive 
training, and finally off to sea. With sea- 
bags neatly packed and shouldered, the 
blue-clad contingents depart; not with 
the great band playing, but by night, at 
hours unknown to the sleeping world. 
Under the stars the long trains pause, are 
loaded, and are gone. A few days later the 
men are put on shipboard at some At- 
lantic port. 

In order to prevent recruits who have 
been exposed to contagious diseases from 
being immediately admitted to the main 
camps, to spread contagion among the 
men, a detention camp is maintained, 
where every recruit must pass three weeks 
of complete isolation from the world and 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 9 

the main camp. Dm*ing these three weeks 
the men are not only regularly examined 
and constantly observed by the medical 
staff, but the several vaccinations against 
smallpox and typhoid are administered, 
throat-cultures tested, and other physi- 
cal examinations made, and the elemen- 
tary principles of seamanship and cleanli- 
ness are inculcated by the commander in 
charge of each company of men. 

I had come in my oldest suit, which I 
planned to throw away as soon as my 
sailor clothes were issued; and I was a 
little disappointed to find that I should 
not get my uniform my first day in camp. 
My instructions and a friendly sentry di- 
rected me to Camp Decatur, and here my 
papers admitted me, past the sentry, 
who was dressed like an Esquimau in his 
great brown storm-proof suit, to a large 
frame building of substantial construction. 



10 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

where I answered the innumerable ques- 
tions of inquisitive yeomen, and received 
my temporary pay-number and a hst of 
clothing and other articles soon to be sup- 
plied to me. 

It is interesting to learn the care which 
the Navy Department exercises in thor- 
oughly equipping its men, and it is par- 
ticularly gratifying, that, despite the fact 
that each week many hundred recruits 
enter the station and are fully equipped, 
there is apparently an abundance of every 
article that the recruit requires for his 
complete outfit. 

A white hammock, a blue mattress 
(which also serves as a life-preserver at 
sea), a white cotton mattress-cover, two 
thick white blankets, and a large bath- 
towel were immediately given to me, and 
these were plainly stenciled with my 
name in black paint, in letters an inch 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 11 

high. With this cumbersome bundle on 
one shoulder, and in my hand the ancient 
satchel that I had brought, containing a 
few toilet articles, I followed my guide to 
the barrack designated as my home for 
the three weeks to come. 

Deep-set in snow, the low green build- 
ings edged the wooded ravines which 
empty, almost a mile away, into Lake 
Michigan. In and out, the winding roads 
led from group to group of buildings. Oc- 
casional groves of trees hinted of summer 
shade; but to-night, in the dry cold air, 
the street lights gleamed as sharply as 
the stars, and struck a twinkling radiance 
from the snow. Here and there the tall 
black stacks of the heating-plants flung a 
smearing streak of smoke along the light 
evening breeze; fires fed by strong arms 
and shoulders which in a few short months 
may be flinging like banks of smoke from 



n A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

racing destroyers to screen the protected 
fleet from hostile eyes. 

It was almost dark when I reached my 
barrack, half-way down one of the long 
streets on the far south side of the deten- 
tion camp. Each barrack building con- 
tains two entirely separate barracks, each 
accommodating one section, or twenty- 
four men. These buildings are about one 
hundred and twenty feet long by thirty 
feet wide, with a dividing partition in the 
middle, thus making each barrack about 
sixty by thirty feet. The entrances are side 
by side, and lead into separate vestibules, 
which, in turn, open into the "head" or 
wash-room, and the main sleeping- and 
living-room. The wash-rooms are fitted 
with the most modern white vitreous fix- 
tures; there are hot and cold showers; the 
floors are of cement, and walls and ceiling 
are painted white. 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 13 

The main barrack-room occupies the 
rest of the space, and is Hghted by day by 
six big windows on each side and four at 
the south end. Walls, floor, and ceiling are 
of bright clear matched pine, and the 
sashes, doors, and casements are painted 
olive-green. Radiators under the windows 
keep the room always comfortably warm. 
At the other end, by the partition which 
separates the two barracks, is the scullery, 
which is connected with the main room by 
a door, as well as by a large opening above 
a counter over which the food is served. 
As all food is cooked in the local mess- 
kitchen, there is no cooking done in the 
barracks. Below the counter, on pine 
shelves, scrubbed, as is everything else, 
after every meal, are neatly stacked the 
twenty-four white enameled plates, cups, 
and bowls; and in orderly line on the low- 
est shelf, lye, soap, cleansers, and so forth. 



14 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

are arranged. On the right hand the wide 
counter extends along the wall under 
double windows, and beneath it is a com- 
partment completely inclosing the gar- 
bage-can, which can be removed only- 
through doors opening to the outside of the 
building, and reached from inside through 
a circular hole in the counter directly 
above the can and closed by an aluminum 
cover. The interior of this compartment 
is painted white. After every meal the gar- 
bage-can is removed by two of the men, 
the contents are burned in the camp incin- 
erator, the can is sterilized with steam, 
and the interior of the compartment 
scrubbed with soap and water. 

On the back wall of the scullery as a 
white enameled kitchen sink supplied 
with copious hot and cold water, and be- 
side it a large metal sterilizer piped with 
live steam, in which all dishes, knives, 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 15 

forks and spoons and dish-rags are steril- 
ized for fifteen minutes after every meal. 
On the fourth wall, a small cupboard with 
drawers contains the ''silverware" and 
the writing materials; and on a shelf 
above are such books and magazines as 
the men may happen to possess. 

In order to assure further the sanitary 
condition, a pail of formaldehyde solution 
is kept at one end of the sink, and in this 
is submerged the drinking cup, which 
must be taken out and rinsed before use, 
and immediately put back into the solu- 
tion. 

Half of the main room is occupied by a 
long pine table with a bench on each side, 
where the men eat, read, and write; and 
here along the wall is a long row of hooks, 
on which each man's blue coat and caps 
and muffler are hung. 

The hammock is a Navy institution. 



16 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

Here, high above the deck, Jack swings in 
comfort through the night hours. Where 
many men must be housed in httle space, 
and where absolute cleanHness is neces- 
sary, the hammock solves the problem. A 
single piece of white canvas, six feet long 
by about four feet wide, is drawn together 
at both ends by a dozen ropes, the ends of 
which are braided together to metal rings, 
to which are fastened the lashings by 
which the hammock is suspended, tightly 
stretched between the jack-stays. The re- 
sult is a contraction of the sides of the 
hammock, making a receptacle for all the 
world like a magnified pea-pod in which 
even an amateur can sleep in comparative 
safety and comfort. The south end of the 
barrack-room is given over to the ham- 
mocks, which are swung between the big 
iron-pipe jack-stays in two rows of twelve 
hammocks each, head and foot alternat- 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 17 

ing, at a height of about six feet above the 
floor. From the center jack-stay are hung 
our big white bags, containing our belong- 
ings; and he is indeed unfortunate whose 
clothes or other possessions are at any 
time found in any other place. 

I am perhaps elaborating in too great 
detail on the equipment of the Navy bar- 
racks, but it is in the belief that too lit- 
tle is generally known of the marvelous 
efficiency which is exemplified in this 
great camp — an efficiency which can be 
but an expression of a similar efficiency 
in the great department of which it is a 
part. 

The barrack was only half occupied, 
and I was warmly greeted by the men, as 
complete uniform equipment would not 
be issued until the section of twenty-four 
men was completed. The barrack *' chief," 
appointed by the company commander 



18 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

from among the first recruits in the bar- 
rack, whose luckless job is to maintain 
order and neatness among his fellows, 
without powers of punishment, welcomed 
me and showed me how to lay my mat- 
tress in my hammock, fold my blankets so 
that my name showed clearly, and hang 
my towel in an equally exact location on 
the foot lashings of the hammock. 

"Chow!" 

It was only haK-past four, but Jack is 
an early riser, retires early, and must be 
fed accordingly, with breakfast at six- 
thirty, dinner at eleven-thirty, and sup- 
per at four-thirty. Through the open door 
two of my new comrades suddenly ap- 
peared, with a great cylinder swinging 
between them. Behind them another 
lugged a huge can, like the old-fashioned 
milk-can but more complicated in con- 
struction, while a fourth carried four long 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 19 

loaves of white bread in his arms. Depos- 
ited in the scullery, the top of the cylinder 
was undamped, and from it was lifted a 
series of aluminum containers nested one 
on another like the vessels in a fireless 
cooker. And, in fact, here was something 
not far different; for these containers, 
filled several hours before in the mess- 
kitchen, were opened in the barrack as 
hot as when the food left the fire; and 
from the apparent milk-can, in reality a 
glorified thermos bottle, poured steaming 
coffee into ready cups. 

We sat down at the long table, and my 
first meal in the Navy was consumed with 
alacrity. That meal, and every meal since, 
has been distinctly good: no relishes or 
frills, but good food, well-cooked and 
served hot. I have since seen the mess- 
kitchen, and its system and cleanliness 
are beyond reproach. Beans are usually 



20 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

served at one meal a day — big red mealy- 
beans, cooked almost to a soupy consist- 
ency. Coffee, tea, and cocoa are served 
daily, coffee with breakfast and dinner, 
and tea or cocoa at night; but for some 
reason unknown to me, all are indiscrimi- 
nately called "Java." We have meat, usu- 
ally in a stew, at least twice a day, and al- 
ways two vegetables with dinner. Bread 
is provided with every meal, and butter 
with breakfast. Two or three times a week 
we have excellent cereal with breakfast, 
and on the other days soup with dinner. 
Jam is often served with supper, and we 
have fresh apples or stewed fruit daily. 

Our barrack contains a strange assort- 
ment of men, but perhaps no stranger 
than every other barrack in the camp. 
Here are two Texas boys, who, during the 
extreme weather of the past few days. 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 21 

have clung tenaciously to the radiators. 
One was a farmer-boy, another a fireman 
on a Southern railroad. The head bell-boy 
of a Middle-West hotel swings in a ham- 
mock near my own, and on one side of me 
is a lithe, alert, blond-haired young man 
of perhaps four-and -twenty, who in his 
vicarious career has peddled papers, 
"ridden the rods," bumming from town 
to town, driven a motor-truck, won his 
laurels as a successful prize-fighter, and 
waited on the table in a city cabaret — of 
all the men he is one of the most attrac- 
tive, with a lively humor, a pleasant man- 
ner, and a quick sense of fair play. He 
joined the Navy, he told me, because it 
"offered him the finest opportunity to 
make a real man of himself." 

Another interesting character is a 
young Wisconsin farmer-boy. Of French 
descent, from the old Green Bay settle- 



22 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

ment, he has developed a rugged Ameri- 
can character, the result of the purifica- 
tion and enrichment of the blood of an 
ancient nation by three generations of 
labor on our northwestern frontier. His 
bursts of wild laughter and rough horse- 
play are constantly blended with senti- 
ment when mention is made of the finer 
things of life, and with a frank affec- 
tion for those who show their friend- 
ship. He was the joint owner of a small 
farm, which he gave up to join the Navy, 
with apparently no thought of exemption 
when duty shone clear. 

I must not forget to mention the pessi- 
mist of our little company. Away for the 
first time from home, he weathered the 
early anguish of nostalgia to settle into a 
fixed atmosphere of constant gloom. It 
was he who gathered voluminous data 
regarding supposititious sickness in the 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 23 

camp, although it would be hard to find 
anywhere so large a number of men in 
such splendid health. It was he who al- 
ways told with sour visage the latest 
camp-gossip if it held bad future omens. 
I last saw him on the way to the camp 
hospital, where he was to have his tonsils 
removed; and I think he was really com- 
placent in contemplation of his discom- 
fort to come. 

Of the Eastern colleges, Amherst and 
Harvard are represented in our barrack 
each by one graduate, and there are a 
number of boys from various State uni- 
versities of the West. A painter, whose 
good-natured laziness and rotund figure 
immediately won him the nickname of 
''Butterfly," a hotel clerk, the assistant 
purchasing agent of a large automobile 
company, a carpenter, a bond salesman, 
and a number of youthful clerks and office- 



24 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

boys complete our numbers. It is interest- 
ing to find how many of the recruits are 
under draft age. 

It is still dark with the blackness of five 
o'clock when the barrack chief calls us 
in the morning with his "Hit the deck, 
boys." Five minutes to tumble out into 
the brilliance of the electric lights flashed 
on sleeping eyes, fold our blankets, lash 
up our hammocks, and get out our toilet 
articles, is all the time allowed. In line we 
answer to our names, and then a rush to 
the shower-baths, with much friendly 
"joshing" and cheering as those hardy 
ones who turn on the cold water spatter 
the crowd. 

As soon as we are dressed comes the 
first of our three daily house-cleanings. 
After the entire room is swept out, all the 
cracks and corners are cleaned with water 
and a stiff broom, and then dried with a 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 25 

cloth. Then the floor is mopped and dried, 
and the whole room carefully dusted. The 
same complete cleansing is at the same 
time given to the "head" or wash-room, 
the scullery, and the vestibule; and after 
dinner and supper the operation is re- 
peated. At least twice a week all the win- 
dows are washed, and a weekly scrub- 
bing is administered to our benches and 
tables. 

For four days we cleared the ground 
immediately about our barracks of the 
winter's accumulation of snow, which had 
piled about the buildings in four- or five- 
foot drifts. With huge improvised sleds, 
carts, boxes, and every possible kind of 
receptacle, the forty-eight men in the two 
barracks beneath our roof loaded the 
snow and dragged it to a near-by ravine. 
Under a bright sun shining in a cloudless 
sky, hundreds of sailors from the other 



26 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

barracks, like the uniformed students of 
some great university, dashed up and 
down the sHppery roads with frequent 
collisions and endless merriment. 

In command of each company of men 
in the detention camp is a young seaman 
who has passed through the School of In- 
struction, where these men are trained to 
instruct the recruits, not only in the rudi- 
ments of drill and seamanship, but es- 
pecially in cleanliness, both personal and 
general, and in deportment and obedi- 
ence. Our company commander is a fine 
big Texan, with a soft southern inflection, 
a ready smile, and a rigidity of purpose 
that compels prompt obedience. As likely 
as not he will appear at five in the morn- 
ing to catch the laggard riser, or at mid- 
night to check the man on watch in the 
barrack-room. By day he is our counselor 
and guide and drill-master. Under his 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 27 

crisp commands the long blue-clad lines 
tramp back and forth across the snow- 
packed drill-ground. "Squads right into 
line, march ! " and we swing sharply past 
him. A dozen other companies are drilling 
also, under their respective commanders. 
It is an inspiring scene. 

A few days after my arrival our barrack 
quota was completed, and we marched 
down to headquarters to receive our com- 
plete outfit. Up to this time we all had to 
a certain extent retained our past identity; 
by the cut and fashion of our garments we 
clung to our little niche in civil life. But 
now all past identification was swept 
aside. Rapidly we stripped, in a great 
white-painted room, casting to one side 
all articles we did not wish to save, and 
tying in a bundle the garments we might 
wish to send home. Through a door the 
naked column passed, and here we were 



28 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

sorted into two files, each of perhaps a 
hundred men. We had brought our big 
cotton mattress-covers with us, and using 
these as bags, we passed to the end of the 
room, across which was a long counter. 
Behind the counter a dozen men served us 
with the various articles of our equip- 
ment, which they tossed, into our bags 
with lightning-like rapidity and accuracy. 
And so specialized were they that a single 
glance at each man as he neared the coun- 
ter was sufficient measurement by which 
to supply him with exactly the proper size 
and fit of garment. With distended bags 
we paused again in the back of the room, 
hurriedly dressed, and again formed in 
line. And now, as we stood fast, inspectors 
passed rapidly down the columns, to see 
that each man had been properly provided 
with shoes, trousers, and other garments 
of the right size. Wherever anything 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 29 

wrong was discovered, the fault was ira- 
mediately corrected. 

It may be of interest to enumerate the 
various articles provided each sailor by 
the Government for his personal equip- 
ment. The following items are copied from 
my "Clothing and Small Store Requisi- 
tion," and are issued to the recruits as the 
articles are needed : 

One pair of arctics, one pair of bath- 
ing trunks, two woolen blankets, whisk- 
broom, scrub-brush, shoe-brush, assorted 
buttons, needles, and thread, clothes- 
stops for tying each garment in a com- 
pact roll, knitted cap called a "watch 
cap," cloth "pan-cake" cap, cap-ribbon, 
comb, two sets of heavy underwear, four 
sets of summer underwear, woolen gloves, 
a dozen handkerchiefs, two white hats, 
jackknife, blue knitted jersey, two white 
jumpers and trousers, pair of leggins, silk 



30 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

neckerchief, heavy blue overcoat, blue 
overshirt and trousers, two towels, soap, 
six pairs of woolen socks, and a pair of 
high shoes. All this is provided without 
cost to the recruit. 

To complete our equipment we were, a 
few days later, supplied with Red Cross 
"comfort kits," and although they con- 
tained some duplications of our govern- 
ment equipment, they filled a big want 
and were promptly put in use by every 
one. Socks, mufflers, and wristlets also 
were given out, and these were particu- 
larly appreciated, because of the sever- 
ity of the weather a>nd our out-of-door 
life. 

There are many hours in Detention, 
especially after supper, when time hangs 
heavily, and to the Y.M.C.A. I owe a debt 
of gratitude for a slim shelf of books 
over the scullery sink, which the local 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 31 

Y.M.C.A. representative changes weekly. 
Collected from households throughout 
the county, these volumes possessed a 
rare variety. The first week it was 
"School-Days at Rugby" that stood 
boldly forth from the best-selling but less 
enduring volumes of more recent days. 
The next week came another assortment, 
and then it was "Trilby," with Little 
Billee, Taffy, and the Laird, who helped 
me keep my thoughts from wandering too 
often homeward. 

Every Saturday morning we are "in- 
spected." Dressed in our blue suits, we 
stand at attention, with all our posses- 
sions spread at our feet on our clean white 
bags. Every garment is carefully rolled, 
according to an exact method, into a tight 
smooth roll, tied three inches from each 
end with a white "stop," or cord, knotted 
in a square knot. All the blue bundles are 



32 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

in one row, white bundles in another, and 
each garment is so rolled that the sten- 
ciled name of the owner appears in the 
center of the roll. With swinging swords 
and full uniform, the officers check up our 
belongings and their appearance, and 
carefully inspect the cleanliness of the 
barrack, running white-gloved fingers 
along the door-tops, in the sink, and along 
scullery shelves. A dirty window or a 
trace of dust brings the punishment of 
additional work in the week to come; but 
punishment is rarely necessary. 

Sickness is the constant foe of any large 
body of men, but there can be little sick- 
ness here. First of all. Detention itself, 
through which every man must pass be- 
fore entering the camp, practically elimi- 
nates all possibility of the introduction of 
sickness by fresh recruits. Furthermore, 
the breaking up of the men in Detention 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 33 

into several sections of twenty-four men, 
each section segregated from the others, 
prevents the spread of sickness in the 
Detention camp. Conveniently located 
throughout Detention are a number of 
completely equipped hospitals and dis- 
pensaries, where the recruits are cared for 
when indisposed. An amusing rule, but 
one obviously necessary when the remedy 
is not palatable, is that the patient for 
whom pills or gargles are prescribed must 
present himself at the dispensary at the 
required hours, and take the remedy un- 
der the eyes of one of the doctors. 

Filled with healthful work and drills 
that are a recreation, the days have 
passed quickly. Each evening we sit at 
the long white-scrubbed pine mess-table 
and write letters home, read, study, and 
sew. Then there is laundry work to be 
done, for we seem to take pride in wash- 



34 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

ing our own clothes, as it will soon be 
necessary for us to do on shipboard. Oc- 
casionally we have an entertainment, 
which consists of the Y.M.C.A. phono- 
graph with its dozen worn records, an 
impromptu sparring bout, or, more often, 
an improvised band with a strange vari- 
ety of instruments, to which all keep time 
with tapping feet and cheers for "Dixie'* 
and ** Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." 
By nine we are ready for our hammocks, 
and deep breathing and occasional snores 
are flagrant, often before the guard has 
opened the last window. Sometimes dur- 
ing the night I wake with a sudden start, 
and as my eyes catch the matched-board 
ceiling so close above me, yellow in the 
glare of a near-by street light which 
shines in through the window, my 
thoughts carry me far away before sleep 
comes again. I am sure that there are 



ORDINARY SEAMEN, U.S.N. 35 

many such thoughts here, although such 
things are rarely mentioned. 

It was a bright blue morning and the 
sun was still stalking low behind the trees, 
when a bugle-note brought me suddenly 
to a halt. I was passing a turn in the road 
when it reached me. Everywhere blue- 
coated men and boys were working; their 
voices sounded here and there, word- 
snatches on the breeze. Half a mile away, 
against the pale western sky, a flagstaff 
pointed high above the green buildings. 
Fluttering, a flag was mounting to the 
peak. I stiffened and a shiver seemed to 
pass through me, the same emotional 
shiver that comes when the band goes by. 
My hand snapped to salute; the flag 
reached the peak, and the red stripes and 
star-flecked blue stood out against the 
sky. 



II 

STUDENTS OF THE SEA 

The three longest weeks of my life were 
my three weeks in Detention, and yet, 
to make a paradox, the time passed with 
surprising rapidity. With the soft spring 
warmth now filling the air, and a brush of 
green over the surrounding fields, those 
three snowbound weeks seem long ago. I 
suppose it is because there have been so 
many changes since; and every change 
you make in the Navy seems revolution- 
ary and drastic. 

There were about two thousand men in 
Detention — boys, more properly speak- 
ing, for the average age was slightly less 
than twenty. Each day a bunch of raw re- 
cruits began their life there, to fill the 
places of those who, having passed their 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 37 

period of inspection and having received 
the various vaccinations, had been trans- 
ferred to the great camp beyond. For 
some, an exact three weeks was all that 
was required; for others, the period was 
longer; and those who had seen a month 
in the camp were madly impatient to 
shoulder their neatly packed hammocks 
and clothes-bags, and be gone to take up 
the more intensive training for sea. 

My detention period ended on the 
morning of the twenty-second day, a fine 
clear still winter morning, with a below- 
zero temperature that creaked in every 
footfall on the dry packed snow. For two 
days I had been ready, "rairing to go," as 
the Texas boys called it; and when the mes- 
sage finally came from the regimental head- 
quarters, I needed only a few minutes to 
pack and shoulder my belongings, say good- 
bye to my companions, and take my way. 



38 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

The Great Lakes Naval Training Sta- 
tion comprises the main camp, a com- 
plete naval training establishment of 
permanent brick buildings, designed to 
accommodate approximately fifteen hun- 
dred men. Surrounding this central unit, 
are the great recent additions, occupying 
about five hundred acres, with buildings 
of semi-permanent construction. These 
camps bear the suggestive names of naval 
heroes, and each camp is complete in its 
equipment, a naval training station in 
itself. To-day the united camps will ac- 
commodate over thirty thousand men; 
and since the beginning of the war the 
station has sent more than sixty thousand 
men to sea. It was to the main camp that 
I was transferred from Detention. 

The next few weeks passed with rela- 
tively little incident. I was quartered in 
one of the big permanent brick buildings, 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 39 

and the days were so filled with ceaseless 
activity that time passed quickly. 

In a great room on the second floor our 
hammocks were swung in two long rows, 
quite as they were in Detention; but here 
I was associated with boys who had all 
been some time on the station, and more 
was expected of us. Every morning at five 
the bugles sounded through the camp: 
first, one far off and very distant to sleep- 
filled ears; then others took up the sum- 
mons; and before the last notes were 
stilled the Master-at-Arms was up and 
shouting, "Hit the deck, boys!" and we 
were drunkenly swinging down from our 
hammocks, a good seven feet, to the floor 
below. 

The company was divided each week 
into details, each with its particular work 
to perform. To our detail the floors, al- 
ways spoken of as "the deck," were given 



40 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

to be scrubbed, mopped, and dried. An- 
other detail polished the wash-room or 
"head," to immaculate brilliancy. I was 
on a "sidewalk detail," and with half a 
dozen others cleaned the concrete walks 
about the building of snow or dust, as 
conditions demanded. 

There was something about those 
morning hours that most of all identifies 
to me my sojourn in the Main Camp. 
Clear, cold mornings many of them were, 
when with brooms we brushed a powder 
of snow from the walk, often by moon- 
light. Often in those cold dark mornings, 
as we brushed the kitchen steps of the 
mess-hall we would scent on the warm air 
from opened windows a rich fragrance 
that is unforgettable. Breakfast for the 
petty officers' mess was on the fires, and 
the aroma of bacon, with its suggested 
complement of fried eggs, filled stomachs 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 41 

empty from five to a seven-o'clock break- 
fast with infinite craving. Reluctantly we 
turned our faces and bent to our sweep- 
ing. Then as the moon slowly set behind 
the mess-hall, the dawn flushed the East 
with light behind the black silhouette of 
the Administration Building, and with 
fingers numb with cold we tramped back 
to the barrack. 

Two thousand sailors ate together in 
each of the two dining-rooms of the main 
mess-hall. It was a well-ordered crew, but 
the sound of so many voices, and the rat- 
tle of knives, forks, and dishes made a 
tumult that could be heard a block. At 
noon a part of the band played, while we 
ate, all the popular airs that the boys 
seemed never to tire of. It was fulsome 
music, with much brass and a great beat- 
ing of drums; but it's the way to make 
"Over There" send a thrill through you. 



42 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

Mess was served by a white-clad "mess 
detail," and everything was put on the 
white board tables with a filled plate at 
each place, before the men marched in. 
Navy slang is required, and were a bill-of- 
fare printed, you would see "Java" for 
tea or coffee, "punk" for bread, "sand" 
for salt, and something that sounds like 
"slumguUion" for any kind of stew. 

Our days were filled with drilling in the 
drill-hall, and, in fact, the greater part of 
the time of the recruit while on the station 
is taken up with foot-drill. It is difficult to 
teach seamanship to landsmen on a sta- 
tion, especially during the winter months; 
and even were an intensive course in sea- 
manship practical, it could not give the 
fundamental value derived from these 
few weeks of drill. It is impossible to de- 
scribe the change which this work quickly 
brings in the whole physical and mental 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 43 

bearing of the recruits. From a mob of 
slouching individuals, a few short weeks 
of training develops a company of alert 
and well-set-up men. Back and forth on 
the smooth floor the companies pass, 
white-shod legs swinging in perfect syn- 
chronism, shoulders thrown back, and 
chins drawn in above bare throats. On 
every shoulder the gun-barrels slant in 
parallel lines; feet beat a drum cadence 
on the floor. Company commanders and 
petty officers shout crisp commands; 
there is a rhythm of drums; the dark blue 
lines break to form "Company square," 
or "on right into line." 

On Wednesday we passed in review be- 
fore the commanding officer. With our 
leggins and braids scrubbed to snowy 
whiteness, we swung down the hall be- 
hind the band. There are bands and 
bands, but the Navy bands play a music 



44 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

of their own; there is a spirit in their fast 
marches that makes you forget every- 
thing; you would follow on anywhere. 

Often in the early morning, while we 
were still sweeping the sidewalks, distant 
calls and cheers would tell us of a draft 
leaving for sea; and sometimes we would 
see the long dark columns marching to 
their trains. There was no band at their 
head, but none was needed; and even the 
intermittent cheers from opened windows 
brought a vivid realization of why we 
were here and what it was all about. 

Curiously, there is little discussion of 
the war at the station. There is too much 
to occupy us, to leave time for specula- 
tion. Every one knows he will some day go 
to sea; a vague realization to most of the 
boys, for very few have ever seen the 
ocean, and many have never even seen 
anything bigger than a row-boat. The 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 45 

general desire is to see Paris, and it is con- 
fidently assured that this will be granted, 
and that at some later date we shall prob- 
ably march in triumph through Berlin, 
with the station band at the head playing 
a Sousa march. Then we will all come 
home and be comfortable heroes for the 
rest of our days. Germany is personified 
in the Kaiser; and whenever he is men- 
tioned, it is usually in relation to some 
picturesque form of personal violence 
that the speaker hopes he may wreak 
upon him. It is a happy-go-lucky crowd, 
filled with youth and enthusiasm. 

In connection with the cheerful uncon- 
cern of the average recruit, it is hard not 
to mention its relation to the effect which 
the death of one of the boys has upon his 
fellows. In so large a community sickness 
is sometimes fatal; and although, consid- 
ering our numbers, these occasions are 



46 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

rare, there is now and then a call for a 
"firing squad," if a sailor's burial is to be 
held in Chicago or some near-by town. At 
these times the prospect of a trip, despite 
the occasion, brings many times the re- 
quired quota of volunteers, and the squad 
invariably departs with a holiday aspect. 
On their return the two chief topics of 
conversation center on the appearance of 
the deceased and the meals which the 
party enjoyed; and the next day we are 
drilling again, and the world moves quite 
as cheerfully as before. 

In the eyes of our captain we are boys, 
and, to be sure, our average age is scarcely 
twenty. In those years between seventeen 
and twenty character is moulded, and it 
is here that the navy in general, and per- 
haps this station in particular, performs 
its greatest service to the country. From 
these months of healthful exercise and 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 47 

clean environment comes a strengthening 
of the moral as well as the physical fiber; 
there is born a sense of unity, order, and 
discipline; right and wrong are clearly sep- 
arated and character is brought forward 
as an honorable and desirable attribute. 

In an essay, "A Twentieth-Century 
Outlook," written not long before his 
death, the late Captain A. T. Mahan 
voices an opinion that finds fulfillment in 
the Great Lakes Station, by a happy coin- 
cidence to-day commanded by a man at 
one time his aide: 

"Is it nothing, in an age when authority 
is weakening and restraints are loosening, 
that the youth of a nation passes through 
a school in which order and obedience and 
reverence are learned, where the body is 
systematically developed, where ideals of 
self-surrender, of courage, of manhood, 
are inculcated, necessarily, because of 



48 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

fundamental conditions of military suc- 
cess? Is it nothing that youths out of the 
fields and the streets are brought to- 
gether, mingled with others of higher in- 
tellectual antecedents, taught to work 
and to act together, mind in contact with 
mind, and carrying back into civil life 
that respect for constituted authority 
which is urgently needed in these days 
when lawlessness is erected into a religion? 
It is a suggestive lesson to watch the ex- 
pression and movements of a number of 
rustic conscripts undergoing their first 
drill, and to contrast them with the fin- 
ished results as seen in the faces and bear- 
ing of the soldiers that throng the streets. 
A military training is not the worst prepa- 
ration for an active life, any more than 
the years spent at college are time lost, as 
another school of Militarians insists." 
In connection with the part the Navy 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 49 

plays in preparing boys "for an active 
life," no better illustrations could be 
found to verify Admiral Mahan's conten- 
tion than here before my eyes. Foremost 
come those general fundamental build- 
ers of character which are here taught 
and inspired — subordination, discipline, 
team-play, cleanliness, and the readiness 
instantly to obey. With minds and bodies 
well-ordered, the boys are separated into 
groups, to specialize according to their 
past experience or inclination. In the Yeo- 
man School hundreds of young men are 
learning stenography, typewriting, and 
the fundamentals of their mother tongue. 
For paymaster advancements others are 
taking up studies, including finance, po- 
litical economy, geography, and mathe- 
matics. In the Department of Public 
Works, engineers, architects, and drafts- 
men are being made. Here, with the in- 



50 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

spiration of the tapering towers, often lost 
aloft in morning mists, others learn to 
send "winged words.'* In the hospitals 
some are taught the merciful arts of heal- 
ing, and almost a thousand, under the 
guidance of the world's greatest band- 
master, are learning to stir men's souls 
with music. But chief of all, in the many 
schools for seamanship, they are learning 
to guide our argosies from sea to sea, in 
the peaceful years to come, and to bring 
back the heritage of the past. Nor must 
I fail to mention that great school of 
ground aviation, where several thousand 
are learning the intricacies of our com- 
ing navy of the sky. We have here a vast 
university, with a curriculum that builds 
strongly for the future. 

My departure from the main station to 
one of the big outlying camps came — as 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 51 

all things seem to come in the Navy — at 
a minute's notice. It was a Saturday, and 
I was already in line to march out for 
thirty-six hours' "shore leave," when the 
order came for me to "shove off" for 
Camp Perry, to take up the job of assist- 
ant company commander in the Sixth 
Regiment. 

The rank of company commander is 
peculiar, I believe, to the Great Lakes 
Station. From the recruits, from time to 
time, men are selected to act as chiefs of 
companies of approximately one hundred 
and fifty men. They are to their compa- 
nies as a captain in the army is to the men 
under him — a commander in drills, re- 
sponsible for the welfare, cleanliness, and 
comfort of the men, and responsible fur- 
ther for the condition of the barracks in 
which they live. In the front of each bar- 
rack, facing the company street, is the 



62 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

room of the company commander and his 
assistant. In the rear, in two long bar- 
racks, the men swing the white hammocks 
from iron jackstays high above the deck. 
Under the company commander are the 
company clerk, who checks the muster- 
roll and attends to the clerical details, 
and two chiefs of section, who exercise an 
under-authority over the men and lead 
their respective sections in drill. 

Camp Perry was filled with men who 
had practically completed their sojourn 
on the station, and many of them were 
serving their second "hitch," or reenlist- 
ment in the Navy. I had, up to this time, 
known only the credulous recruit, and my 
new experience with a crowd erudite in 
station ways was at first discouraging. In 
the eyes of a sea-going "salty" sailor we 
are all landsmen, and hence "rookies," 
until we have made one cruise; but even 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 53 

among rookies there are grades of distinc- 
tion, and'every man is almost childishly 
eager to have, at least, a "sea-going" ap- 
pearance, although he may never have 
smelled salt water. Our leggins, for in- 
stance, when new, are a rich tan color, but 
the constant scrubbing of months bleaches 
them snowy white. Accordingly, the few 
weeks' recruit soon learns to spend in- 
credible energy bleaching his leggins 
by artificial means, to approximate the 
longer enlisted men, and any recipe is 
eagerly accepted to attain the desired end. 
I remember, in Detention, how a number 
of the boys utilized the otherwise futile 
can of talcum powder provided in our Red 
Cross kits to powder their leggins each 
morning. And an enterprising tailor in the 
near-by city of Waukegan must have ac- 
quired a small fortune sewing stiff with 
cotton thread the brims of our white hats. 



54 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

to give them the desired "salty" appear- 
ance. 

There are many types of men here, but 
they quickly become distinguishable and 
fall into natural groups. Of these one is 
the "hard-boiled" variety that delights 
in harmless bullying, and when given a 
little authority, becomes sometimes a 
burden to the rest of the community. 
Most of our "hard-boiled" members have 
achieved their reputation with the hope 
that it would give them a bearing sup- 
posedly more seafaring. There are a few 
who are natural bullies, but they are the 
minority; in the majority of cases, how- 
ever, the men are without affectation, 
natural in their ways and speech, glad to 
exchange letters from home, and una- 
shamed to show their finer emotions 
when the occasion arises. 

There were about fifteen hundred men 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 55 

in the Sixth, and for the most part they 
were enhsted in the ground-aviation 
branch of the service — expert motor 
machinists from the great automobile 
factories of Detroit, taxi-drivers, garage 
workers, machinists, and a general mix- 
ture of various trades combined into one 
unit. Several of the men in my company 
wore red "hash marks" — a diagonal 
band of red on the sleeve, just above the 
cuff, each mark signifying an enlistment 
in the Navy. To these was accorded a natu- 
ral deference due to their long experience, 
and their habits of dress and speech were 
quietly observed as a pattern to follow. 
From them also, in the few idle periods 
that were allowed us, came tales of foreign 
ports, of target practice, of the fleet, and 
of "shore liberty" in every quarter of the 
world, with the inevitable wind-up of a 
free-for-all to the ultimate victory of the 



56 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

Yankee tar over the crew of some foreign 
battleship. 

Our entertainment is well provided. In 
the great drill-halls are shown nightly the 
latest moving-picture films, and on fre- 
quent occasions complete theatrical pro- 
ductions are gratuitously staged by the 
managements of the Chicago theaters. 
Never, I imagine, have some of the actors 
and actresses received such ovations. 
Only a few nights ago I attended a vaude- 
ville performance. Three thousand sailors 
crowded the front seats in the vast drill- 
hall. A sailor orchestra played the over-: 
ture. Then, before the curtain appeared a 
woman in an evening gown of the rich 
theatrical vogue, and to the silent hall she 
sang a new topical song, to the effect that 
we had crossed the Delaware, we had 
crossed the Rio Grande, and we would 
cross the Rhine. At the last note a roar 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 57 

burst from the audience. Again and again 
she repeated the last verse; and when she 
finally left the stage, she was weeping, and 
the crowd had taken up the refrain under 
the guidance of the waving arms of the 
leader of the orchestra. 

The manly art of self-defense is not 
neglected in our curriculum, nor, for that 
matter, are any of the sports that bring 
recreation to healthy men and boys. A 
former champion of the Atlantic fleet, 
now an ensign, U.S.N., is in charge of the 
boxing, and from our great numbers is 
drawn a wealth of pugilistic material. On 
Wednesday evenings in the winter, and in 
summer in the afternoons in a natural 
amphitheater, the talent of the several 
camps is matched in the ring; and before 
the cheering white-clad audience nerve, 
skill, and determination are matched in 
clean-cut bouts which give indication of 



58 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

the spirit that is here undergoing training 
to meet on another day, in more bloody- 
fields, an antagonist who may not play 
so closely to the rules of the celebrated 
marquis. 

Athletics are an important part of the 
life of a sailor. On sea there are frequent 
boat-races between ships of the fleet, and 
at the station we find equivalent competi- 
tive exercise in boxing, track-races, and 
football and baseball games between the 
teams of the several camps. In winter the 
basket-ball team makes a fairly extensive 
tour of the country, and such trips of the 
athletic teams have their positive value in 
attracting young men of virile type to the 
Navy. Wrestling is another sport that 
brings to the front the manhood of the 
boy, and I have seen a thousand faces 
tense in the white electric light following 
the snaky twistings of the heroes of the 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 59 

padded ring, impulsive cheers recognizing 
the subtlety of each particular hold. In 
the basement of one of the main buildings 
is a large white swimming-pool; on the 
floor above, a complete gymnasium stands 
open for the use of the sailors; and in an- 
other part of the same building is a bowl- 
ing-alley. Jack's physical fitness and en- 
tertainment seem assured. 

It would be ingratitude to fail to men- 
tion the various buildings maintained 
through different organizations by pub- 
lic contribution, for the recreation and 
amusement of the enlisted men. First, if 
for no other reason than by the scope of 
its operation, is the Y.M.C.A., and the 
Great Lakes is fortunate in possessing at 
least half a score of these practical build- 
ings. In them are provided writing mate- 
rials and desks, and this alone, I am confi- 
dent, is responsible for fifty per cent of 



60 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

the "letters home" — letters that with- 
out this simple suggestion might never be 
written. Here also are big warm stoves, 
magazines, and occasional moving pic- 
tures in the evening. I am sorry that the 
rules of the station, due primarily to the 
frame construction of the buildings, pro- 
hibit indoor smoking. It is the only thing 
of the kind that the Y.M.C.A. cannot 
afford us. 

Similar buildings are maintained with 
equal efficiency by the Knights of Colum- 
bus; but there are two other activities 
which seem to me to deserve perhaps even 
more detailed mention than the forego- 
ing, because of the fact that the more 
limited scope of their operations has given 
them less general publicity. 

The Young Women's Christian Asso- 
ciation fills an unquestioned place in the 
life of our station. There is something. 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 61 

truly, in the *' woman's touch" that can 
be found in no organization under mascu- 
line direction; and to boys and men far 
separated from mothers, wives, sisters, 
and sweethearts, the open fires, chintz 
curtains, and dainty furnishing of the 
Y.W.C.A. Hostess Houses give a touch 
of femininity that is tacitly appreciated. 
But the even greater function of these 
houses, presided over by gracious women, 
whose presence is an inestimable service, 
is their contribution to the station of a 
meeting place for men and women; a right 
environment, where mothers and fathers 
may^meet their boys, and where Nancy 
may meet Jack for a cup of tea and a sand- 
wich, and listen to something or other on 
the phonograph while conversation flows 
on in the quiet channels of decent sur- 
roundings. 

The other organization that I have in 



62 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

mind is the American Library Associa- 
tion. During the past two months I have 
been stationed "west of the tracks,'* in 
Camp Perry, and, later, in Camp Dewey. 
Midway between is the building of the 
A.L.A., and here I quickly found a quiet 
haven for study, in a big, warm, well- 
aired building, filled with books that met 
every desire of study or relaxation, pre- 
sided over by intelligent gentlemen eager 
to give their help to the war by sharing 
with the boys their wider intellectual 
points of view. 

Our health is a matter of no less con- 
cern, however, than our mental welfare, 
and in this matter the Government shares 
no responsibility with outside interests. 
Needless to say, our hospitals, dispensa- 
ries, and so forth are of the highest order 
of efficiency; but a description of these is 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 63 

but the description of efficient hospitals 
anywhere. It is the incidentals that give 
the pictures. In our barracks our ham- 
mocks swing side by side in double rows 
down the dormitory. To check the spread 
of colds and contagious diseases, the hos- 
pital authorities installed movable cot- 
ton curtains, which each night are eas- 
ily adjusted between the heads of the 
hammocks. These "sneeze curtains," as 
they were immediately dubbed, very soon 
had an appreciable effect on the sickness 
lists of the regiments. 

Happy is the sense of humor of the 
sailor. Several times each week we are in- 
spected for indications of measles or scar- 
let fever. As the first sign is a rash on the 
stomach, it is here that we are inspected. 
There is a cry by whoever first sees the 
visiting surgeon, of *' Attention!" then 
comes the word, "Belly inspection," and 



64 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

we fall into line, and with our blouses and 
shirts pulled up above our breeches march 
past the doctor. It was a Texan who, with 
a fine disregard for the majesty of our 
gold-striped surgeon, secured from the 
clothing depot a paper stencil, such as 
we use to mark our clothing, and with 
black paint lettered his bare stomach 
with "Good-morning, doctor." There are 
times when even an officer laughs. 

All Texas has certainly enlisted in the 
Navy, and as our average age is below the 
draft age, it suggests even to the casual 
that the spirit of the Alamo goes march- 
ing on. Tall and lean, they come from 
Texas towns, villages, and the open 
plains. All speak with the rich accent of 
the South, but most of all they are dis- 
tinguished by. their native manners, 
which seem to be invariably present. Few 
of them have ever seen a boat, but all of 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 65 

them are eager to leave their native ele- 
ment and become sailors. They are a 
splendid class of men, a type that seems 
to exemplify the ideal American. 

Among the men who were directly un- 
der me in the regiment was a short sandy 
fellow who, I learned, had spent a number 
of years as a sailor on West Coast freight- 
ers. Twice shipwrecked, he had finally 
retired from seafaring to the less tempes- 
tuous occupation of a gold-prospector in 
Alaska. On a periodic trip to a near-by 
town he had learned that the country was 
at war, and without stopping to dispose 
of his claims, — • which held greater possi- 
bilities of wealth with every telling, — he 
hurried to the States and enlisted in the 
Navy. His chief desire while on the sta- 
tion was to climb one of the four-hundred- 
foot radio towers and perform a hand- 
spring on the top; a desire, happily for 



66 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

life and limb, never to be gratified. As it 
was, his leisure time was completely filled 
by embroidery and the weaving of mats 
and fringes from rope-ends. 

In the same barracks slept a young ex- 
minister of the Gospel, whose slight figure 
and quiet manner contrasted with the 
rugged physique and picturesque speech 
of the gold-prospector. They were both 
willing workers, and a friendship sprang 
up between them, for each found in the 
other qualities for wonder and admi- 
ration. I never heard the history of the 
minister, but there was in the intensity of 
his patriotism a promise for his future. 

Many of the men were married, and on 
Wednesday afternoons, which were set 
apart for visitors, wives and children were 
much in evidence. One of the men, a dark 
boyish-looking fellow, with fine wide-set 
eyes and constantly smiling mouth, had 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 67 

particularly attracted me by his quiet 
willingness. He had been a motor expert 
in one of the big automobile factories at 
Detroit, and threw up a high-pay job to 
join the Navy. One Wednesday afternoon 
he proudly introduced me to his wife and 
three-year-old daughter. Later, the wife 
told me of her pride in her husband's en- 
listment and her satisfaction in having 
been able to find a good position for her- 
self in order to keep up the earning capac- 
ity of the family in his absence. 

I was listening one morning to a fellow 
company commander drilling his com- 
pany in the street before their barracks. 
The men were listless, and there was ab- 
sent from the drill the smart precision that 
instantly identifies the drill-work of a sailor. 
Without long patience he finally halted 
his men, and in a few short sentences de- 
manded their attention. One sentence in 



68 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

particular I shall never forget, for it is a 
crystallization of the spirit of the Station. 

"Don't just do your bit," he said; 
"the men on this station do their best." 

There is another phrase that is in a 
sense our motto. It is, "For the good of 
the ship." Landlubbers though we are, 
we are taught by our captain to consider 
our camp as a ship in which we must take 
a true sailor's pride, whose reputation is 
entrusted to us, a sacred thing. All our 
speech must be nautical, our life is nauti- 
cal, and although we live on land, our 
floor is our deck; when on the station, we 
are on board ship; and to step outside the 
gate is to "go ashore." For the good of the 
ship we are taught that the Navy in gen- 
eral, and our station in particular, are 
judged by our behavior and appearance. 
To go on liberty requires personal cleanli- 
ness; to remain on liberty demands ex- 



STUDENTS OF THE SEA 69 

emplary behavior. It is a single but an 
inclusive creed, that guides the accumula- 
tive spirit of youth. 

A few, weeks ago we passed in review 
before the Secretary of the Navy. With 
our regimental colors standing out in a 
strong cold breeze from the Lake, we 
formed in the one wide street and swung 
into line behind our band. I was marching 
near the head of the column, and as we 
turned a bend in the road I looked back 
at the regiment, extended at right angles 
to the foremost company. Fifteen hundred 
strong, four abreast, we jBUed a long half- 
mile of road. The sky was blue, and the sun 
heightened the brilliance of white caps 
and leggins and caught here and there a 
flash from gray gun-barrels. In the middle 
of the column, the red bars of the flag 
made a dash of color, and beside it the 
blue regimental flag, with its yellow de- 



70 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

vice of the Aviation, flapped in the breeze. 
From every regimental street similar col- 
umns were emerging. Bands were every- 
where playing, the music in wind-torn 
fragments sounding now and again loud 
in our ears. 

Before the Administration Buildings 
we finally formed, and for an hour we 
marched past the reviewing stand. Men 
from every state in the Union, brought 
together by a common call, we went past. 
The great band, massed together, thun- 
dered its music. From roofs, flagstaffs, 
and towers multi-colored signal flags 
dipped and waved. High against the blue 
above us was the flag of our country. 
Here was America, with its answer to the 
world. Here were the inheritors of Perry, 
Decatur, Hull, Farragut, and Dewey. 
Here were men from whose number 
would come new heroes. 



Ill 

THE TRANSPORT 

From Alaska and the Western islands, 
from the Pacific slopes, from the great 
Northwest and Southwest, from the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, the Gulf States, and the 
Eastern States, they have congregated; 
drawn together, forming and reforming 
into ever-increasing armies, miners and 
bank clerks, college professors and farm- 
ers' sons, these vast legions have been 
gathered, silently and almost unobserved, 
into a handful of seaport towns; and from 
these ports of embarkation America's 
Army of Liberty, without interruption, 
passes across three thousand miles of sea 
to foreign lands. Beyond conception is the 
number that has been transported; nor 
has the tide yet reached its height. In the 



72 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

wonder of their gathering and in the glory 
of their deeds beyond the seas, perhaps 
have been unnoticed some aspects of their 
transit. Impatient hours are their hours of 
travel across the sea. But to those whose 
duty it is to insure their safe and speedy 
passage, they are long hours of anxious 
expectancy. The description of a single 
passage across the Atlantic will tell the 
tale. Be there a thousand or ten thousand 
within the narrow hull, the general as- 
pects are the same. 

The city's streets reflected the wither- 
ing heat of early August, and that heat, 
on a certain August morning, was the 
city's chief concern. As I passed down 
through the canon walls of buildings, I 
felt a certain resentment that these mil- 
lions of people were taking up their daily 
labors apparently unmoved by the vast 



THE TRANSPORT 73 

emigration that passed almost unnoticed 
before them. I was proud to be a partici- 
pant in this mighty movement, and yet I 
was envious of these busy people, envious 
of the uninterrupted even tenor of their 
lives. 

There was a slight coolness on the 
river, but beyond the portal of the ferry 
came again the heat of pavements and the 
dry hot smells of city streets. Long rows 
of buildings stretched north along the 
river, and above the roofs here and there 
towered high sparless masts and huge 
funnels painted in strange bands of color, 
emitting thin wisps of smoke or steam 
which rose almost perpendicularly into 
the air. Along the rough pavement passed 
an interminable procession of rumbling 
trucks piled high with great boxes sten- 
ciled with addresses over-seas. Soldiers 
and sailors moved along the sidewalk. 



74 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

There was a restless but ordered sense of 
activity. 

Beyond the guarded gates to one of the 
nearest piers the steel shed-like building, 
which enclosed the dock-ends and ex- 
tended its two-story projections out along 
each pier, opened wide black doorways. 
Through them electric trucks passed in 
and out from the yards crowded with 
freight to the dark interior. 

Inside the building was the same or- 
derly confusion. Up to the high ceiling 
against every wall was piled an infinite 
variety of boxed, baled, and crated ma- 
terial: wagons, gun-carriages, aeroplanes 
and caissons, provisions of every descrip- 
tion, medical and commissary supplies, 
lumber, canvas, rope and wire, barrels, 
casks, and metal cylinders of fluid. Be- 
tween the barricades of freight, and al- 
most indistinct in the gloom to sun-dazed 



THE TRANSPORT 75 

eyes, a long line of soldiers stretched far 
down the building, and beyond a distant 
corner out on the enclosed pier to the 
gangways to the ship. They were hot, 
dirty, and tired with long hours of railway 
travel, and they moved forward in slow 
advances of ten or a dozen feet, resting 
their packs, meanwhile, on the concrete 
floor and leaning on the polished blue 
barrels of their rifles. Bronzed with their 
months of training, their dark faces of- 
fered little contrast to the rakish service 
caps of khaki or the drab of service uni- 
forms. They were tired, but their disci- 
pline was unbroken, and there was a no- 
ticeable gayety in the ranks and the spirit 
of a holiday already at hand. 

Here a regiment of pioneers, weather- 
beaten faces making dark contrast to 
straight blue eyes and sun-faded hair. 
Matching them in appearance was a regi- 



76 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

ment of city-bred, whose recently broad- 
ened shoulders swung easily beneath the 
heavy packs. Glistening with rivulets of 
sweat, the black faces of the negro com- 
panies responded to every diversion with 
instant smiles and laughter. Among the 
men passed and repassed officers in smart 
inconspicuous uniforms. They were young, 
for the most part, but here and there 
were older faces. 

The doors of the pier shone with sun- 
light that filtered down between the pier- 
shed and the high side of the waiting 
transport. At each door the narrow gang- 
way ascended sharply to the ship's side. 
At two gangways the troops were em- 
barking; at the others stevedores were 
loading supplies and freight. 

There was no view of the vessel, only 
glimpses of plates of rivet-studded steel 
through square sunlit openings — steel at 



THE TRANSPORT 77 

this door painted a sky-blue, and at the 
next door and the door beyond in slanting 
stripes of black and white camouflage. 
There was a smell of salt water in the air 
and a reminiscent tang of other seafaring 
days in a huge coil of tarred hawser. 

Beyond the steep ascent of the gang- 
way there was light and a sudden sense of 
heat. Like a mighty building the sides of 
the transport lifted high against the roof 
of the dock-shed and extended from the 
head of the basin to the river at the far 
end. Abaft the forward cargo-deck, the 
superstructure rose deck on deck to the 
culminating sweep of the bridge, full sixty 
feet above the greasy water of the slip; 
and above the cargo-deck the foremast 
and the mainmast rose high against the 
blue sky, dwarfing the stocky kingheads 
which directed the long cargo booms. 
Across the face of the ship the blue, white. 



78 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

black, and gray camouflage shattered the 
otherwise orderly outline, giving to the 
vessel the fantastic appearance of some 
gayly painted plaything of a giant. 

In the shadows of the decks, white-clad 
oflScers directed the chaos of the embarka- 
tion; and up the gangways and down the 
black hatches in the deck two inter- 
minable files of soldiers issued like brown 
ropes from the doorways of the pier and 
smoothly slid across the narrow strip of 
water, to be coiled away somewhere in 
the caverns below the decks. 

A dozen women in cool blue Red 
Cross uniforms mingled with the crowd. 
Y.M.C.A. workers busily offered their 
final services. Trunks and boxes, officers' 
baggage, came over the side and were 
snatched off by perspiring men and hur- 
ried below. Everywhere were ceaseless 
activity, heat, the confused sounds of 



THE TRANSPORT 79 

many voices, and the smells of the ship, 
the water, and sweating bodies. 

The embarkation was completed, and 
the long tan lines that for seeming hours 
had mounted steadily the slender gang- 
ways had terminated in the steel decks 
below. We lunched in the once richly deco- 
rated saloon where men and women had 
gayly gathered in long voyages to the dis- 
tant Orient. But to-day the central table 
was lined with naval officers, and on either 
side, at other tables, sat the several hun- 
dred army officers who were accompany- 
ing us. In the soldiers' quarters galley- 
fires had been long lighted and dinner was 
being rapidly served to the men. With cup 
and tin plate in hand, they passed in line 
before the serving-tables, then scattered 
about the decks and voraciously devoured 
their first meal on shipboard. 

All afternoon the loading of baggage 



80 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

and supplies was continued. Everywhere 
about the decks the soldiers wandered, 
examining their new surroundings or 
clustering about boxes and hatch-covers 
to write last letters before departure. 
Night came. Far across the river a myriad 
lights gleamed like faint stars against the 
soft sky. From the darkening river rose 
the voices of passing vessels, ferries call- 
ing out to each other in the growing dusk, 
deep resonant whistles of ocean vessels 
and the raucous cries of tugboats. Below 
decks on the transport a piano dominated 
all local sounds with the staccato metallic 
notes of the latest music-hall melodies. 
About the piano a hundred soldiers gath- 
ered in a hollow circle, in which two negro 
soldiers, streaming with sweat, clogged 
violently, with white flashes of smiles and 
clapping hands. From the roofs of the 
dock-sheds bright flood-lights illuminated 



THE TRANSPORT 81 

the transport with an unreal dayhght, and 
far above their glare, in the still hot roof 
of the sky, faint stars shone with a pale 
white luster. 

It was midnight. Diiven by the intense 
heat from below decks, the sleeping sol- 
diers incrusted every level surface of the 
ship. On every square foot of deck, on life- 
boats, on life-rafts and piles of still un- 
stowed baggage, on booms, hatch-covers, 
and gratings, they flung their bodies in 
sleep. Upturned to the glaring lights and 
the stars beyond, white faces lay as on 
some strange field of battle. Here and 
there half -naked bodies turned or twisted 
heavily. Broad chests rose and fell in even 
breathing; bare feet extended stark and 
white against the deck. A man with a 
dark mustache across his lip cried out 
a sharp incoherent sentence of foreigp. 
words. Beside him a tall young man with 



82 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

clean-cut, boyish features tossed rest- 
lessly. As he shifted his weary body, his 
arm fell across the sleeping man beside 
him. I watched the arm unconsciously 
and almost tenderly tighten about the 
stolid figure, and then, as the touch 
brought back some far memory to his 
dreams, I saw his body relax, the fitful 
tossing ceased, and he sank into tired 
sleep. 

It is late afternoon of the second day. 
For almost twenty-four hours we have 
been ready, awaiting the word which 
would send us on our way. During these 
long hours the soldiers swarmed restlessly 
about the ship. At frequent intervals the 
army band blared noisily popular patri- 
otic airs, and the men roared out the ring- 
ing choruses in appreciation. But now 
there are certain signs which to an ob- 
serving eye indicate nearing departure. 



THE TRANSPORT 83 

The pilot, a young man with a jaunty 
black-and-white checked cap, is on the 
bridge chatting with the captain. Quietly, 
all but two of the hawsers have been 
cast off, and all but one gangway have 
been lowered away from the side. A vi- 
bration trembling deep within the great 
ship indicates that our engines are turn- 
ing over. That test alone is indicative. 
The wail of our siren rises loud above the 
roofs, and now every man realizes that 
the long journey is at hand. There is a 
noticeable quiet. 

Four tugs, with much churning of green 
water, puff noisily into the slip and fasten 
like leeches against our bow and stern. 
Soldiers crowd the rails. Every one is on 
deck. From the upper deck, directly be- 
low the bridge, where I am standing with 
several of the ship's officers, I watch with 
dull emotion these last material sever- 



84 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

ings from a land that holds all that is life 
to me. 

Bells jangle deep in the engine-room. 
The tugs surge against the ship. Suddenly 
I become conscious that we are moving. 
With my eye I line up a deck-stanchion 
with a mark on the dock-shed. The cheer- 
ing becomes general, a wild triumphant 
tumult of sound, a roaring of these thou- 
sands of American voices. 

The dock-sheds are deserted. No an- 
swering cheers meet our ears. From a 
doorway appears a single Irish stevedore, 
who waves his arms to us. All the cheering 
instantly focuses on him; he becomes to 
us America, and the roar of triumphant 
farewell swells up from the packed decks. 

Slowly we slide past the dock and out 
into the stream. On the forward deck the 
army band smashes into the chorus of 
*'Over There." Instantly the voices re- 



THE TRANSPORT 85 

spond. It is tremendous, and there is a 
lump in my throat and tears of emotion 
stand in my eyes. 

A cool breeze sweeps up the river. 
Piled high in lofty towers and pinnacles, 
the great city rises from the blue water, 
a gleaming silhouette against the sky. 
About its feet innumerable wharves, like 
extended fingers of a giant hand, clutch 
the water. A ferry-boat crowded with re- 
turning workers slides past us; there is a 
flutter of handkerchiefs from its decks. 
The band strikes up the "Star-Spangled 
Banner." Slowly we glide down the river, 
our decks massed with khaki-clad sol- 
diers. The band plays continuously and 
the men join in every chorus, volleys of 
cheers drowning the music as ferries and 
pleasure vessels pass us. The long pile of 
gleaming buildings mounting to a single 
crag of white drops behind and we glide 



86 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

slowly past the green park at the island's 
point. Against the clear sky the gray cob* 
webs of the bridges stand out in delicate 
tracery. Ferries and excursion boats pass 
close to us, and upturned women's faces 
send us a last farewell. 

From the after gun-deck I watch the 
towers darken in the soft evening light 
and sink slowly into the horizon. In the 
widening bay a great argosy rides at an- 
chor. There are graceful sailing ships of 
other days, rejuvenated to begin a new 
life of usefulness. There are steel cargo- 
carriers, stolid honest burghers of the sea, 
strangely bedizened in their mad dress of 
camouflage; and between them dart the 
smart gray patrol boats. 

Gray green, the massive figure of Lib- 
erty seems to pass us. Behind her the dis- 
tant shore lies low on the horizon. The 
sun dips behind it and is gone. With arm 



THE TRANSPORT 87 

uplifted the symbolic goddess seems to 
tender us a silent benediction. 

We pass the Narrows and steam slowly 
through the passage in the great steel net 
that guards the harbor. On either hand, 
behind the soft green hills, must lie the 
guns that guard the sea-gate to the city. 
At last, the open sea! 

The channel buoys drop behind us and 
suddenly I am conscious that the land has 
sunk below the horizon. Night begins to 
close down rapidly on the darkening sea. 
There is a steady whirring far above, and 
out of the sky appears a sea-plane that has 
come to escort us. Ahead, another strange 
shape looms in the sky, a silvery cigar al- 
most invisible against the gray. A minute 
later it passes over us and our decks are 
white upturned faces. From the left a long 
rakish craft climbs over the horizon, its 
graceful sides and low funnels patterned 



88 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

with converging stripes of white and black. 
Behind the destroyer is the gray bulk of 
a tall-stacked cruiser. A mile farther a 
submarine awash falls in on our right. 
Sky and sea merge slowly into night, and 
in the deepening dusk the escorting ships 
become phantom shapes that the eye must 
strain to see. Our long voyage is begun. 

Morning came with dazzling sunshine 
and a calm blue sea. On right and left the 
cruiser and destroyer flanked our course. 
The submarine, sea-plane, and dirigible 
had disappeared. At noon I began my 
new duties as Junior Watch-Officer, and 
took my first of many four-hour watches 
on the port wing of the bridge. 

The transport bore an enviable history. 
She was well armed, and her officers dis- 
played unconsciously in their bearing the 
training which characterizes the Ameri- 



THE TRANSPORT 89 

can naval officer and places him in the 
enviable position which he holds to-day. 
The captain, a graduate of the Naval 
Academy, who had since continuously 
followed his profession in the regular 
navy in practically every quarter of the 
globe, possessed in a high degree those 
qualifications of professional ability and 
courtly personality which almost invari- 
ably stamp our naval officers. Among the 
other officers were many who had joined 
the Reserve Force on the outbreak of the 
war, men whose long experience on mer- 
chant vessels qualified them highly to 
perform their present invaluable service. 
Early in the afternoon faint smears of 
light smoke edged the horizon, and a few 
minutes later the funnels of the convoy 
poked up above it. An hour later we 
were in the midst. Gathered from un- 
named ports, these unnamed vessels met 



90 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

on a definite square mile or so of ocean 
known only to their commanders. Fan- 
tastically marked with camouflage of va- 
rious colors, with our escorting cruisers 
and destroyers circling about us, we made 
our picturesque formation and began our 
united progress. 

It may be pertinent at this point to ex- 
plain that the true purpose of camouflage 
is not, as is popularly supposed, to render 
the ship invisible, but rather, by various 
arrangements of converging bands of col- 
ors, does it seek to conceal the relative 
direction or "bearing" of the ship from 
enemy vessels which may sight it. So suc- 
cessful is this effect, that I have several 
times found it necessary to study care- 
fully a vessel, to determine its actual di- 
rection; and of the vessels in our convoy 
one repeatedly gave us trouble, due to the 
fact that she constantly seemed to be fall- 



THE TRANSPORT 91 

ing off an undeterminable number of 
points from her actual course. 

For four days the heat of a cloudless 
midsummer sky beat down upon the ship. 
With the breeze behind us, the movement 
of air was neutralized and we seemed to 
pass steadily through an intense calm. At 
night many of the soldiers slept on deck, 
and the long promenades were almost 
impassable with sleeping bodies. Below 
decks, by day, the soldiers were rapidly 
accustoming themselves to their new 
quarters. Meals were served with clock- 
like regularity to appease appetites sharp- 
ened by sea air. Daily the band played a 
concert on the deck, and the other ships 
of the convoy were a never-failing source 
of interest. All the day the men basked in 
the sunshine. It was to the majority of 
them a long-desired rest after their weeks 
of arduous training. 



92 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

On the fifth day a hazy sky and rapidly 
moving gray clouds on the horizon gave 
promise of a change. By sunset the sky 
was dark with black clouds, and as day 
departed, an indescribable blackness set- 
tled over the ocean. Nowhere was sky or 
sea clearly discernible, except along the 
northern horizon, where a pale band of 
lemon light separated the pall above from 
the lead-gray of the water and seemed to 
let in across the sea a heavy ray of light, 
such as might shine beneath the lowered 
curtain of a window in a darkened room. 
Against this clear bar of light the ships of 
the convoy on our port beam, in black 
silhouette, perched on the top of the hori- 
zon from which the ocean, like a blank 
wall, seemed vertically to descend. Now 
and then came the rumble of thunder 
from the south, where against the com- 
plete darkness of the sky the lightning 



THE TRANSPORT 93 

fell from low-lying clouds in straight 
smooth liquid plunges to the sea. 

At eight I took my watch on the port 
wing of the bridge. From my high pros- 
pect the bow of the ship was but indis- 
tinctly visible; aft, all was engulfed in 
darkness. The sea was smooth, but the 
impending storm was appalling. On clear 
nights it is none too easy to keep for- 
mation in a convoy, for, as a necessary 
protection against submarine attack, all 
lights are extinguished or totally obscured 
from sunset until dawn; but on such a 
night the danger of collision was immeas- 
urably increased. In haK an hour the 
lightning became incessant, and showed 
on every quarter of the horizon. Not the 
traditional jagged flashes, but smooth, 
falling columns of fire that seemed to pour 
from the clouds as molten steel is poured 
from the tapped hearth. Suddenly, the 



94 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

rain began — rain so dense that it ob- 
scured wholly whatever the darkness had 
left visible. Blotted out instantly were 
our companion ships, the incessant light- 
ning showing only a falling curtain of sil- 
ver threads, behind which my compan- 
ions on the bridge seemed to move as 
vivid black and white figures projected on 
the screen by a cinematograph. 

One hour later there was a brief respite, 
and in the abrupt relief, at each lightning 
flash, I could dimly see the black forms of 
our sister ships plunging evenly on the 
long swells. Our formation was still main- 
tained and all was well. I was soaked 
through to the skin, but the air was warm, 
and the heavy coolness of saturated cloth- 
ing compensated for the fatiguing heat of 
previous days. 

At intervals the rain fell with even 
greater violence; and at midnight, when 



THE TRANSPORT 95 

my watch was at an end, I left the bridge 
and groped my way below to my cabin 
with infinite relief. 

Sunday dawned bright and cool, a 
heavy brilliant blue sea rolling in deep 
valleys and high mountains of sparkling 
water, the highest peaks slashed into fly- 
ing spray by the knifeblade of a strong 
northeast wind. Against the blue sky cot- 
tony clouds tore like clippers before the 
wind; and over the moving surface of the 
sea the ships of the convoy, like gayly 
garbed ladies of the chorus, in their.fan- 
tastic camouflage, pitched and roUed, 
taking now and then a flood of green wa- 
ter over the bow, which poured aft and 
spouted in cascades from the decks, then 
settling deep by the stern, with a clear 
sight under the forefoot. By night the sea 
had somewhat moderated — a deep ul- 
tramarine sea flecked with foam, and 



96 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

above it a pale sky of delicious blue, 
across which heavy pink clouds sailed 
slowly. 

The soldiers stood the ordeal well, but 
the motion of the ship did not pass un- 
noticed and there were not a few cases of 
violent seasickness. For the ship's officers 
and crew the storm was a mere detail in a 
routine in which storms and submarine 
warnings had become almost monoto- 
nous. There was a kind of fine fatalism in 
their attitude. To be sure, the submarine 
danger was at that time particularly 
acute, and one officer had left two ships 
torpedoed beneath him; but the realiza- 
tion that no precaution or safeguard was 
being neglected, and that, despite occa- 
sional sinkings scored by submarines, the 
Germans were playing a losing hand, 
kept confidence up to a high degree. 

Too much cannot be said to the credit 



THE TRANSPORT 97 

of the reserve officers of the transport 
service for the efficient service they per- 
form. Many have voluntarily left posi- 
tions of command on smaller merchant- 
men or passenger ships, to accept gladly 
the more arduous war-service in subordi- 
nate positions and at a material reduction 
in compensation. Back and forth, from 
continent to continent, they are trans- 
porting our army, running their zigzag 
courses in darkened convoys, ever ready 
to show their heels to the lurking foe, 
or, if necessary, to meet him face to face 
with steel from well-manned guns and the 
rocking blasts of depth-charges cast in 
the sea. Their hours are long; their recrea- 
tion negligible; I never have heard a word 
of complaint from their lips. 

Just aft of the mainmast, on the for- 
ward freight-deck, the superstructure of 
the ship rises abruptly a full three decks 



98 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

to the bridge, where I stood my watches. 
From side to side, across the beam of the 
ship, the bridge extends, a long broad 
promenade inclosed in the center about 
the wheel and binnacle, and housed over 
on each end to protect the watch-officers 
from the weather. Beside the binnacle, 
which holds the compass, are the tele- 
graphs or engine-room signals, by which 
the speed of the ship is regulated; and 
here, in fact, are the eyes and the brain- 
center of the vessel. From the starboard 
bridge the senior watch-officer gives his 
orders to the quartermaster at the wheel, 
and maintains a strict lookout for what- 
ever of importance may appear on the 
surroimding sea. On the port side the 
junior watch-officer also scours the sea 
and at regular intervals inspects the ship, 
and performs such other duties as the 
senior watch-officer may put upon him. 



THE TRANSPORT 99 

Behind the bridge is the chart-house, 
where the navigating officer keeps his 
charts, astronomical instruments, and 
chronometers. And above is the signal- 
bridge, where the signalmen flicker their 
red and yellow flags in hurried words and 
sentences to other ships, or hoist aloft 
the gay, multicolored alphabet flags of 
the International Code by which coded 
messages are transmitted. Here too is the 
blinker by which in peaceful waters night- 
messages are flashed in dots and dashes of 
light; and, above all, the fingers of the 
wireless hold the vessel in close communi- 
cation with the shore and with a wide 
radius of vessel-dotted sea. 

The starboard wing of the bridge is held 
by the senior officer of the watch, and it is 
here that the captain and the other offi- 
cers of the ship may be frequently seen. 
My station was on the port wing where. 



100 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

by day or night, at dawn or sunset, I 
watched the unending beauty of sky and 
sea and the long Hne of our flanking con- 
voy. 

"Smoke on the horizon!" With his 
glass the captain studied the thin wisp 
that faintly smeared the pale blue. In- 
credibly soon the stacks showed above 
the horizon. The navigating officer joined 
me. "She's a big one," he commented. 
Two other ships on either side of the first 
became visible. Rapidly their hulls came 
up, the course west and passing a few 
miles to the south of us. 

Like huge race-horses, they came stead- 
ily on, spun smoke trailing behind them. 
The huge liner towered above her com- 
panions, but all were maintaining an 
equally high speed. 

"She can carry ten thousand men. 
Think of it!" said the navigator. 



THE TRANSPORT 101 

For a moment I too was staggered at 
the thought; and then, as my eyes swept 
the vast heaving expanse of sea, the great 
vessel became a toy that floated there, 
a chip with its puny load. Despite the 
greatest feats of human ingenuity the sea 
remains incomparable, vast, unconquer- 
able. 

" Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
Stops with the shore." 

Already the great ship was a speck sink- 
ing below the horizon. 

By night I saw Polaris high on the left 
dimmed by the multitude of surrounding 
stars. Ahead, rising from the sea, in the 
brief hours before the dawn, came Venus 
and Jupiter, like liquid drops of silver 
flame. Behind the swinging masts Orion 
extended his mighty length, and above 
him, far above the masts, the glittering 
Pleiades shone like some rare jeweled de- 



102 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

sign of Da Vinci pinned to the silken fab- 
ric of the night. 

In the strange soHtude of these long 
night hours, and in a silence broken only 
by the sound of the sea swirling and foam- 
ing past our sides, with its brilliant wake 
of phosphorescent light, or by the sudden 
shrill of the boatswain's pipe and the 
heavy footfalls of the changing watch, 
my thoughts would wander to the peace 
and simple happiness of all that we were 
leaving behind us; of the unknown future 
that was awaiting us; of the hopes and 
fears of those thousands who slept almost 
within hand-touch within the thin steel 
walls; and then, with my eyes aching to 
pierce the night, to discern the black 
form of our convoy or to catch the white 
rushing path of a torpedo that might sud- 
denly challenge our way, my thoughts 
would center on the work at hand and on 



THE TRANSPORT 103 

the submarine that might even now be 
trying to pierce the same sm-rounding 
night with its single eye. Then each break- 
ing crest became a thing of suspicion, and 
I was fascinated and buoyant under the 
still suspense. 

At two-hour intervals I inspected the 
great vessel from stem to stern. Here in 
the slow lifting and sinking of the bow 
there was a noise of parted waters. Every- 
where watchers scanned the sea, silent 
sentries paced, prostrate sleepers encum- 
bered the decks. There was eternal vigi- 
lance and complete oblivion. Far down 
in the engine-room sounded the mighty 
movement of the engines; their tremor 
pulsed the ship with life. 

In the evenings there were movies 
in the ward-room. On a sheet fas- 
tened against the forward bulkhead, the 
Y.M.C.A. projector cast the reeling com- 



104 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

edy or tragedy — familiar pictures from 
a land that was home: a flash of American 
rm-al scenes or a crowded street. It was 
home — om* United States. How ab- 
sorbed we became in the incident-crowded 
skein of some inconsequential and haK- 
baked scenario! Forgotten for the mo- 
ment was our present environment. 

From the dark, tobacco-rifted room I 
groped to the deck to go on my watch. 
My eyes were dulled for the moment; 
then, as they pierced the clear night dark- 
ness and I saw the sea and the stars and 
the convoy, the magnitude of this great 
mid-Atlantic drama would burst upon 
me. Here was a mightier moving-picture 
than even the imagination could conceive, 
here was the most tremendous setting, 
here the actual dangers. Who knew what 
heroes might be among us an hour hence .^^ 

The destroyers are with us. Out of the 



THE TRANSPORT 105 

black night they came straight to the 
meeting place. The soft graying of night 
found them racing beside us. At sun- 
rise the soldiers crowded the rails and 
watched, fascinated, the strangely painted 
slender vessels haK smothered in the seas, 
shaking white torrents from their dip- 
ping bows, rolling and pitching with tre- 
mendous motion. They are our protec- 
tion. We feel strangely safe under their 
vigilant escort. 

The white church flag, with blue cross, 
fluttered against a gray sky. From the 
bridge I could hear now and then the 
words of the chaplain, words of God and 
Country and Liberty. The soldiers sur- 
rounded him. The bandmaster lifted his 
baton. "Onward, Christian Soldiers." 
The music of brass was lost in the music 
of deep voices: 

" Onward, Christian Soldiers.'* 



106 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

It was late morning. From a dozen 
lookouts within a few seconds had come 
the cry of "Land ! " On the far horizon for 
a little space the movement of the line of 
sky and sea seemed stilled; a low green- 
gray thread rested along the waters. Men 
crowded forward. They clung to the 
shrouds and climbed to every point of 
vantage. The green line whitened into 
cliffs, and through the glass appeared the 
slender white column of a lighthouse. 

The band is on deck. It has played the 
"Star-Spangled Banner." There is a mo- 
ment of silence; and then, with a crash of 
brazen instruments, the "Marseillaise" 
begins. It is France ! 

The sails of fishing vessels dot the hori- 
zon. White bold cliffs lift higher; promon- 
tories jut seaward. A sea-going tug passes 
close to us, guns mounted fore-and-aft 
and racks of depth-charges on her f antail. 



THE TRANSPORT 107 

From the peak a flag of vertical bars of 
blue, white, and red greets our eyes. Sail- 
ors in red-tufted white hats wave to us. 

Now we can see green fields mounting 
slowly behind the white cliffs. As we near 
land other lighthouses appear, and now I 
can plainly see a ruined castle with gray 
unroofed walls. We are moving slowly in 
column through the bold entrance to the 
harbor. Of a sudden appears the city, 
cast into the circling hillside; gray build- 
ings with blue slate roofs; the white out- 
lying walls of green-embowered chateaux; 
and above the still dark water of the har- 
bor, the massive walls of ancient fortifica- 
tions, with turrets and low towers. 

The sky is very blue, the harbor is 
alive with vessels. The anchor-chain roars 
through the hawse-pipe. We are swinging 
slowly with the tide. 

"We are over, over there!" 



IV 

THE FREIGHT CONVOY 

We are moored in midstream beside the 
collier. On either hand the river surges in 
the swift ebb of the tide, a broad expanse 
of water tawny with mud. Between the 
gray side of the yacht and the camou- 
flaged steel plates of the collier — launched 
some eight months ago near Cleveland — • 
the water runs like a millrace and roars 
ominously, pushing out the bow of the 
yacht against the tautened lines which 
hold her to the collier. Beyond the yellow 
water the low green shores of France fade 
in the gray mist, and a fine rain is falling. 
There is a rumble of winches; from the 
black caverns of the collier a great bucket 
of coal swings high in the air and dumps 
on the once immaculate deck of the yacht. 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 109 

Down it swings again into the electric- 
lighted gloom where negro stevedores in 
Army drab, from far-away Norfolk and 
Charlestown, shovel in the coal. On the 
decks of the yacht the crew, blackened 
with dust from head to foot, pass down 
the coal to the fast-filling bunkers. For 
five hours they have labored unceasingly; 
by ten to-night the coal will be aboard 
and the bunkers trimmed. Yesterday we 
brought in the incoming convoy, to-day 
we coal, to-morrow we are off again. 

At ten we cast off from the collier and 
stood down the river to meet the outgoing 
convoy at the mouth. The clouds have 
cleared and there are dim stars in the dis- 
tant sky. It is nearly dawn. Against the 
black shadow of the shore the lighthouses 
shine like planets, one with a clear emer- 
ald gleam far out at sea. At the entrance 
to the harbor the long white rays of 



no A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

searchlights probe the darkness, and be- 
yond the dark outhne of the breakwater 
are occasional yellow lights of windows in 
the town. But in the east, where the river 
widens into a broad roadstead, a glitter- 
ing constellation gleams along the water, 
reaching almost from shore to shore. Here 
the great argosy of merchantmen rides to 
the flood. Here are the steel carriers laden 
with the vast stores that keep in motion 
our machine of war. Here also is the fleet 
of emptied freighters that we will escort a 
few hours later out to sea. Their lights 
glimmer tranquilly as the white search- 
lights sweep the entrance. 

The sky pales perceptibly in the east. 
From the town a bell strikes the hour of 
five. I am on the bridge, and as 1 count 
the strokes I think that it is an hour be- 
fore midnight at home. In the breaking 
day a French patrol boat comes out from 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 111 

behind the mole and passes us on her way 
down the channel. Rapidly the clouds 
break into flame and a cold, clear breeze 
comes in from the sea. The ancient town 
becomes visible in the curve of the shore, 
the spires of the churches, the dark bulk 
of the dirigible shed, and, toward the sea, 
the high white summer homes of the newer 
part of the town along the cliff. 

In the great semicircle of the French 
coast which swings from Brest to the 
Spanish line are many harbors such as 
this, harbors whose names sound fre- 
quently in the early history of our nation, 
and whose names bear new significance in 
its latest history of to-day. Nantes recalls 
the Ranger and John Paul Jones; Qui- 
beron Bay, a few miles north of it, is 
memorable for that first salute to the 
Stars and Stripes by a foreign nation^, 
when the guns of Admiral Le Motte 



112 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

Piquet's ships gave it recognition. There 
is Brest, rich in memories of our first great 
seaman, and there is L'Orient where the 
Bonhomme Richard sailed out on her 
memorable cruise that ended with her en- 
gagement with the Serapis off Flambor- 
ough Head. 

To-day the names of Brest, Nantes, 
L'Orient, Bordeaux, and Bayonne are 
forming new associations. Waters that in 
the lives of the oldest inhabitants have 
seen only the fleets of fishermen and an 
occasional steamship are to-day crowded 
with the shipping of the Allied world. On 
a coast where the American flag found its 
first recognition by a French admiral, it is 
to-day recognized at a thousand mast- 
heads at every port. Great wharves have 
sprung up about the harbors and along 
the rivers. American merchantmen, con- 
voyed by American converted yachts and 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 113 

destroyers, discharge American cargoes 
for American armies overseas. The flag 
has come to its own again. 

It is day. In the bright smishine almost 
a hundred ships swing slowly at their an- 
chor chains, a vast floating island of steel 
hulls, forested with slim, sparless masts 
and faintly smoking stacks. Our anchor is 
lifted and the chain rumbles up through 
the hawse-pipe. Slowly we steam past a 
wide mile of vessels to our position. 

Here are the flags of the nations of the 
world, but by far most numerous are the 
Stars and Stripes. The red flag of the 
English merchantman is much in evi- 
dence, and so are the crosses of Denmark, 
Sweden, and Norway and the tri-color of 
France. From a big freighter flies the sin- 
gle star of Cuba. The red sun of Japan 
and the green and yellow ensign of Brazil 
snap smartly in the breeze. A few of the 



114 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

freighters are painted a leaden gray, but 
for the most part they are gay with cam- 
ouflage. The spattered effects of the ear- 
her days are now replaced by broad bands 
of flat colors. Black, white, blue, and gray 
are the favorites, slanting to the bow or 
stern and carried across life-rafts, boats, 
superstructures, and funnels. Even the 
motor trucks on the deck of a big Ameri- 
can are included in the color plan. Some 
appear to be sinking by the head, others 
at a distance seem each to be several ves- 
sels. It is a fancy dress carnival, a kaleido- 
scope of color. One and all they are of 
heavy and ugly lines. On forward and 
after decks the masts seem designed only 
to lift the cargo booms and spread the 
wireless. They are broad of beam, mon- 
strous, ungainly. The oil burners are even 
more unshiplike, for a single small funnel 
is substituted for the balanced stacks of 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 115 

the coal-burners. Fore and aft on the gun- 
decks the long tubes of the guns point out 
over bow and stern. Yankee gun crews, 
baggy blue trousers slapping in the 
breeze, stand beside them and watch us 
pass. Blue-clad officers peer down at us 
from the bridges. Aloft, hoists of gay sig- 
nal flags, red, yellow, white, and blue, 
flutter like confetti in the air. From signal 
bridges bluejackets are sending sema- 
phore signals with red and yellow flags. A 
big American ocean-going tug churns 
through the fleet. On our right is a 
French mine-layer, long rows of mines 
along her deck. Fast motor boats sHde in 
and out among the vessels. Above, like 
dragon-flies, three seaplanes circle, the 
droning snarl of their motors coming in 
sudden bursts of sound along the wind. 

The outward-bound convoy of empty 
freighters is ready. Bursts of steam from 



116 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

bows indicate that anchor engines are 
lifting the big mud-hooks from the har- 
bor's floor. One by one the ships steam 
slowly out of the harbor; converted 
yachts and small French destroyers on 
either side. Out where the entrance broad- 
ens to the open sea a big kite balloon tugs 
at the small steamer far beneath it, and 
seems to drag it by a slender cord of steel. 
As we pass the farthest channel buoy a 
barque stands in from the sea and passes 
us. The centuries meet. Trim and grace- 
ful, with clean-cut lines and tapering 
masts and spars, the ship seems to rush 
through the green water, a white bone in 
her teeth, and her canvas bellying like 
clouds before the wind. Along her side is 
painted a broad white band broken at 
regular intervals with squares of black 
simulating the gun-ports of a fighting 
ship. She might belong to the fleet of 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 117 

Nelson or of Villeneuve; a century has 
worked no changes in the sea or the back- 
ground of the low French coast. Then my 
eyes turn to the long line of stout steel 
freighters, wisps of smoke streaking from 
their funnels against the sky, heavily 
plodding into a head sea and wind. Gone 
is the beauty and elegance of wooden hull 
and sky-flung sails. 

Each trip that we make is for the most 
part exactly like the others. From some 
crowded harbor we escort a fleet of empty 
freighters far out beyond the Bay of Bis- 
cay. Here, beyond the active submarine 
zone the yachts and small French patrol 
boats leave the convoy and a few hours 
later, or perhaps a day or night, we meet 
an incoming convoy on some prearranged 
square mile of the Atlantic Ocean and es- 
cort it to the port. Every hour is filled 
with unceasing vigilance; no chance is 



118 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

taken; the safe delivery of our charge is of 
paramount importance. No matter what 
conditions of weather prevail the work 
goes on. In fog and rain, in high seas and 
in the teeth of northwest gales, the little 
vessels perform their unremitting duty. 
By day the convoys move forward along 
a base course, zigzagging to the right or 
left of it, now ten degrees, now fifteen, 
now twenty or thirty, according to a 
prearranged plan, with the precision of 
a company of well-drilled infantry. In 
front, in the rear, and on the flanks the 
escorting yachts and destroyers execute 
their individual zigzags to cover every ex- 
posed part of the convoy. By this system 
of zigzag the accurate aiming of a torpedo 
by a submarine is rendered difficult, for if 
a periscope is lifted and a bearing of a 
ship is taken, that ship will probably be 
headed on another course, with necessa- 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 119 

rlly a different bearing from the submerged 
submarine by the time the torpedo can be 
fired. Few are the cases to-day when the 
submarine actually shows itself by day. 
The first sight of the periscope may be 
when it is first lifted at a distance of sev- 
eral miles when the submarine will follow 
the convoy on a parallel line to determine 
its bearings and finally will converge to- 
wards it at an angle of forty-five degrees 
on the bow of the convoy. Having deter- 
mined the bearing and range the subma- 
rine will submerge. Only once more will 
the periscope appear, this time at a dis- 
tance of about three hundred yards. Then 
it will be visible only a few seconds; just 
long enough to take final aim. Difficult to 
detect in a calm sea, except from the wake 
which it may create, it is practically in- 
visible in a wind-torn sea slashed with 
white caps. 



120 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

From the crow's nest, from the super- 
structure, and from the bridge a dozen or 
more pairs of sharp eyes are constantly 
searching the sea with glasses to detect a 
sign of the submarine's presence. Like all 
the converted yachts, we carry a small 
but efficient battery of high-power guns, 
capable of doing considerable damage if 
there is a chance for their use; but it is not 
on guns that we rely nor are our guns the 
weapon most feared by the submarine. 
On the graceful f antail of the yacht, along 
three short steel racks, lie a number of 
steel cylinders, of ordinary ash-can size 
and appearance, ready at a second's no- 
tice to be rolled one by one over the 
stern. Charged each with over three 
hundred pounds of the highest explosive, 
these depth charges are controlled by a 
hydrostatic apparatus to explode at any 
depth for which they may be set. Within a 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 121 

radius of fifty to seventy-five yards their 
impact can destroy a submarine and their 
effect is noticeable over a wide area. It 
is this form of weapon, scattered by the 
yachts and destroyers, according to a sys- 
tem based on the known maneuvering 
abiHty of the submarine, that has accom- 
pHshed most in destroying the menace of 
the seas. 

By night our greatest danger Hes not so 
much in submarine attacks as in colhsion 
with vessels of the convoy, the escort, or 
other passing ships. Not a light is shown; 
with ports darkened and all illumination 
even below decks reduced to a minimum, 
the great convoys and their escorts pursue 
their ghostlike way. In the blackest nights 
the compass is the only guide, and with 
lookouts straining their eyes to pierce the 
darkness each ship swings steadily on. 
When the moon is up, even though the 



123 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

sky is overcast, there is ample light to lo- 
cate the low, black masses of the ships on 
the horizon. Such nights are ideal, for 
they are too dark for probable attack and 
yet there is enough light by which to 
see. The bright moonlight requires the 
same precaution as daylight. Night is the 
breathing-time for the submarine, and it 
is then that they come to the surface and, 
with hatches open, charge their batteries 
and communicate with one another by 
wireless. And when caught in this condi- 
tion the submarine is easy prey. 

In the fall and winter months it is al- 
most invariably rough in the Bay of Bis- 
cay. Built for quiet steaming along sum- 
mer shores from port to port the yachts 
have been required to perform a duty for 
which they were neither intended nor de- 
signed. The yacht to which I am attached 
bears little resemblance to-day to what it 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 123 

must have been in the days of peace. 
Where a crew of twenty or twenty-five 
once Hved, to-day a hundred and twenty- 
five are quartered. Bunks fill former 
smoking-room and library. Rough parti- 
tions divide the owner's cabin; mahogany 
and brass and white enamel are buried 
under half a dozen coats of battle gray. 
The concussions of depth charges have 
broken glass and ripped white tiles from 
bathroom walls. Gun-racks and cutlasses 
line bulkheads of mahogany. White decks 
once smooth as velvet are torn and splin- 
tered by the wear of a year and a haK 
of bitter service. Aft, where once wicker 
chairs and gay pillows filled the broad 
curve of the stern, are guns, steel am- 
munition chests, and launching tracks 
heavy with depth charges. In the deep 
waters of the Bay lie two of her sisters, 
one rammed at night, another sunk by a 



A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

torpedo; a third yacht Hes broken on a 
reef. 

I have been particularly interested in 
the officers and the crew of this little 
vessel, and I believe they are typical of 
most of the ships performing this weary- 
ing duty; it gives an interesting sidelight 
on American adaptability. Our Captain, 
a "two-and-a-haK striper," is a regular 
Navy man and a graduate of the Naval 
Academy. He is still in his twenties and is 
receiving this training as a preparatory 
course to a more important command. 
The rest of the officers are Reserves, 
ranging in age from twenty to forty-six, 
drawn from every part of the country and 
representing a variety of vocations. One 
dealt in fire insurance before the war, an- 
other was a capitalist; there is a patent 
lawyer, a college undergraduate, an ath- 
letic instructor, an advertising man, a 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 135 

broker, and a manufacturer. We hail from 
Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Min- 
nesota, California, Washington, and Illi- 
nois, and here we are, on the Bay of 
Biscay, and, thanks to the Navy Depart- 
ment and the training it has given us, we 
are doing the work in hand; not like regu- 
lars, perhaps, but still doing our best. 

The crew is a fine, enthusiastic aggrega- 
tion of American youth salted with a gen- 
erous sprinkling of men who have seen 
service before the war in the Navy or 
on merchantmen. "Mac," with a sailor's 
roll in his wiry legs, knows "no home but 
the ship" and has been at sea for twenty 
years, since his first voyage at the age of 
thirteen. Many of the youngsters are in 
for a full four-year "hitch" as a part of 
their education and for a chance to see 
something of the world. They won't re- 
gret it and many will make it their life- 



126 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

work, for there will be room for the right 
men in the future Navy of the United 
States. There is a young coxswain who 
taught country school in a Kansas village, 
a quiet little fellow with precise English 
and an absolute unconcern for seafaring 
ways. Another youngster, from Boston, is 
the entertainer of the "glory hold." He 
has never missed a chance to make a 
liberty on shore, and invariably returns 
materially strengthened in his rampant 
admiration of the places, people, and cus- 
toms of his native land. "Biarritz is all 
right," I heard him remark after a visit to 
that fashionable resort, "but give me Re- 
vere Beach for a real place." And there is 
nothing in all Europe that can compare 
with his native Boston. It's the same 
with the rest of them. Everything re- 
ceives an invidious comparison with the 
American equivalent and each trip on 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 127 

shore strengthens their proud American- 
ism. 

But to return to the convoy. There was 
a heavy sea roUing in over the bar, and 
outside the bottle-green waves made the 
yachts and destroyers toss heavily. An 
hour later, under a dark, clouded sky, the 
convoy was pitching and rolling in a con- 
stantly growing sea, and as night came, 
wind and driving blasts of fine rain added 
to the discomfort. I went on the bridge 
at eight, a perilous climb from the ward- 
room up over slippery decks and the 
swaying ladder to the bridge. In the utter 
blackness the other ships of the convoy 
and escort had disappeared. There was no 
light of moon or stars and even a flash of 
light on any ship was forbidden. Only 
before the helmsman's face shone the 
dim slit in the binnacle through which he 
watched the compass swinging madly on 



128 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

the gimbles. The sea was black with 
slashes of dead-white spray running along 
the wave crests, and as our bow sank into 
each wave, it cast a white millrace of foam 
aft along our sides, the ship shuddering 
heavily at the impact. Over the breast- 
high canvas along the bridge the wind 
flowed like rushing water, heavy blasts 
soaked with spray striking our faces like 
blows from a flat board. I left the bridge 
at midnight, but sleep was almost impos- 
sible, for the rolling and pitching of the 
yacht continued with increasing violence. 
Day dawned with a low, gray sky and a 
heaving leaden sea lashed white in the 
wind, the water streaked with soapy ed- 
dies blowing to windward. East and west 
along our course the convoy staggered on. 
The formation was broken, but all were 
accounted for. Still clinging to the out- 
skirts the yachts and destroyers rose and 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 139 

disappeared between the waves, their 
smoke streaming back flat from their 
stacks along the wind. During the morn- 
ing the hfeboats swung from davits on 
our upper deck were several times dragged 
in the water by a heavy roll, and a big sea 
smashed in the wardroom windows and 
deluged the officers' quarters with a cou- 
ple of barrelfuls of water. 

The wind dropped somewhat during the 
afternoon, and by evening the clouds had 
broken and here and there bright stars 
flashed for brief moments a promise of 
better weather to come. The following day 
dawned with a splendor of gold and rose- 
stained clouds piled against the east and a 
clear blue sky above. The sea was rich 
with the brilliant ultramarine of deep 
water, and as the sun rose above the 
clouds the white crests caught a pink 
tinge from the sunlight. In the clear, cold 



130 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

air came now and then from the oil-burn- 
ing freighters invisible wisps of smoke like 
the strong smell of a smoking kerosene 
lamp. 

With the first tinge of dawn comes one 
of the most favorable times for a sub- 
marine attack — the other being the hour 
of twilight — for it is possible for a sub- 
marine to locate and follow a convoy un- 
observed during the night and make the 
attack with the first morning light. With 
dawn also comes a renewed vigilance on 
the part of the escort and convoy, out- 
looks are increased and the sea is thor- 
oughly scanned for a tell-tale slick of oil 
from a submarine's exhaust; for flocks of 
birds hovering over refuse cast up from a 
submarine, or for a chance glimpse of a 
silvery periscope among the waves. 

For a number of days we plodded west- 
ward, the convoy in orderly formation 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 131 

pursuing a constantly varied zigzag, and 
the escort in front, behind, and on either 
flank zigzagging more or less independ- 
ently. Late one afternoon, after an hour 
of fluttering signal flags and much signal- 
ing by semaphore, we parted from the 
convoy and with the other ships of the 
escort, and in the soft twilight stood north 
to the rendezvous of the incoming convoy. 
I went on the bridge at four in the 
morning. It was still night with a dim 
mist of stars and a jet-black sea heaving 
in long swells. Behind the wheel the 
helmsman stood, a shrouded figure in 
his wind-and-rain suit, the peaked hood 
drawn over his head. On either wing of 
the bridge were similarly clad lookouts. 
Hot coffee and bread had just been 
brought up from the galley by the messen- 
ger. We had picked up the incoming con- 
voy at one and the officer of the deck 



133 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

pointed out, through our night-glasses, 
their dark forms hke low mounds on the 
black horizon. 

The night watches, on a still night, are 
filled with a silence that is intensified by 
the motion of the ship and the soft pres- 
sm*e of the wind. Dawn comes slowly with 
gray white light that gradually defines 
the ship and the figures of the watchers on 
the bridge. Then comes a moment when 
the other ships become definite. On this 
particular morning a soft haze filled the 
air. As the reflected glow of the sun, still 
below the horizon, caught the eastern 
clouds, the convoy, a great flotilla of 
black objects, appeared resting quietly 
like a flock of gulls on the sea. Then as the 
dawn brightened a low-voiced whistle on 
one of the distant vessels broke the still- 
ness, the long and short blasts sounding 
a signal letter. One by one the others 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 133 

answered, deep bass voices, melodious, 
resonant, calling to one another like sea- 
fowl greeting the day and assuring them- 
selves of the others' presence. 

We made our "landfall" on a gray day 
which gradually brightened, and by after- 
noon a warm October sun was shining on 
the green shoal waters of the coast. First 
appeared a tall white lighthouse, then the 
thin line of the shore. In the afternoon the 
wireless reported a submarine eight miles 
on our starboard beam. A great French 
dirigible had located it and was follow- 
ing it until the hurrying destroyers and 
aeroplanes could complete its destruction. 
With renewed vigilance we continued our 
way along the broken coast. Out of the 
mist the aeroplanes, like the wild geese of 
the north, winged straight across us and 
were gone. A half-hour later two dirigi- 
bles ploughed seaward through the mist. 



134 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

Twilight. In the dusk the familiar 
flashes of the lighthouses promised a safe 
arrival. Slowly, in long formation we 
stood up the harbor. The rattle and roar 
of descending anchor chains sounded over 
the quiet water. Another great convoy of 
twenty-seven steel cargo ships, laden with 
food, steel, oil, trucks, ammunition, and 
general supplies, had reached its destina- 
tion. Four hours later we began to coal. 

I remember on another convoy a night 
of brilliant stars in a purple sky with fre- 
quent squalls of rain that swept across it 
in the cold gale that blew from the north- 
west. There was a tremendous sea and 
the ship rode heavily with a constant tor- 
rent of water breaking over her. Suddenly, 
far ahead, flashed a signal from another 
yacht of the escort, "Submarine on port 
bow." In an instant the gongs were clang- 
ing below decks and the strident, deep 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 135 

voices of the howlers were adding to the 
tumult. Up from below decks the crew 
swarmed into the sudden chill of the 
spray-soaked air, tying the lashings of 
their life-preservers as they ran. I hur- 
ried to my position at the depth charges 
on the fantail, where already the depth- 
charge crew were loosening the chocks 
and standing ready to pull the safety 
keys, slash the lashings, and cast them 
loose. At the after guns black groups of 
half -naked men were gathered, faces now 
and then faintly illumined in the dim 
glow of the tiny lights on the range dials. 
A sudden sea — a wall of black water — 
submerged us to our waists and poured 
off as the stern lifted heavily, the scupper 
drains sucking noisily and the remaining 
water swashing back and forth across the 
deck. For an hour we stood in readiness. 
Then came the order to "secure." Dan- 



136 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

ger, real or speculative, was for the time 
being past. 

Ever since the United States entered 
the war, the yachts and destroyers of the 
merchant convoys have played their si- 
lent part in the struggle with a submarine 
enemy. In every kind of weather, month 
after month, the dull routine of the con- 
voy work goes steadily on. By night, 
over the wireless, come the undecipherable 
messages of talking submarines, the air- 
flung voices of the convoys, and the near 
or distant "Alio" of distress. *'We are 
being shelled by a submarine," may be 
the words caught by the wireless opera- 
tor, or the officer on the bridge may see 
suddenly the flashing signal of distress of 
a straggler in his own convoy and realize 
that the sea-sharks have closed in on 
their victim. There are days and nights 
when the wardrooms and the crews' quar- 



THE FREIGHT CONVOY 137 

ters are crowded with the refugees from 
sinking vessels. There have been aban- 
doned merchantmen with their costly car- 
goes that have been manned and brought 
half -sinking into port by crews from the 
yachts or destroyers. There have been 
open boats strewn with dead and dying 
that have been sighted far out on the 
bleak sea, and dead bloated bodies in life- 
jackets that have gone bobbing past. 

But in spite of every disadvantage, 
hardship, and discomfort that has ever 
been known to those who have sought the 
sea in ships, the officers and men of the 
American Naval Forces in France have 
delivered safe to their designated harbors 
the great and ever-increasing fleets of 
merchantmen that have kept our battle- 
line supplied with the sinews of war. 
Never has the American Navy played a 
greater and more unostentatious part in 



138 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

the great game of war. And never has 
been more truly illustrated the words of 
Washington, pointing so clearly to the 
future, *'to an active, external commerce 
the protection of a naval force is indis- 
pensable." 



DESTROYERS 

It was a dazzling blue-and-gold morning 
when I first saw the destroyers. Out of the 
night they had come. Like land birds they 
greeted us on the waste of waters, and as 
we realized the strength of their protec- 
tion in this submarine-infested sea that 
bordered the coast of France, we looked 
down at them from the high decks of the 
transports with admiration and watched 
them swing and plunge at headlong speed 
in a smother of spray, chisel bows dipping 
under green water, slender masts reeling 
in wide arcs, camouflaged sides now visi- 
ble, now lost to view as they caught the 
swinging seas. They circled us and took 
their positions, the tiny flag of the United 
States snapping from their mainmasts. 



140 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

We felt unutterable comfort in their com- 
pany. 

A few months later I was ordered to 
destroyer duty; with the anticipation of 
this new and thrilling service I took my 
leave from the converted yachts and the 
great, lazy storeship convoys of the south 
and proceeded to Brest, where the destroy- 
ers of the troopship convoys were based. 

Never can I forget that ancient harbor 
with the old town cast into its green rim, 
the narrow, high, rock-walled entrance, 
and the busy water that lay within the 
breakwater, where lay the great trans- 
ports and the repair ships and where the 
destroyers rested like slender slivers of 
quivering steel side by side in clusters at 
the great buoys. At night the blinkers 
trembled like fireflies from a hundred 
yards, searchlights combed the sky, red 
and green running lights trembled on the 



DESTROYERS 141 

water, and everywhere were the Hghts of 
passing small boats. By day all was ac- 
tivity. In through the narrow entrance 
came great convoys, liners with decks 
teeming with khaki-clad armies, brave 
eyes wonderingly looking down at this 
distant shore from which so many were 
never to return, destroyers darting fast 
through the still waters in escort. And 
each week departed the outgoing convoys 
of empty liners, destroyers in escort to 
return some five days later with other 
ships and other legions. 

There were eight officers on the Ben- 
ham and a crew of over a hundred men. 
A thousand some odd was her ton- 
nage, eighteen thousand horse-power, oil- 
burner, turbine-driven, a lean, graceful 
arrow with a knife-edged bow and four 
rakish stacks on her low, wave-washed 
back. Forward, a single gun graced the 



142 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

lofty deck; then the towering superstruc- 
ture of the bridge, and aft of the bridge the 
sudden drop to a five-foot free board that 
extended aft Hke a shaft behind a lance- 
head to the stern, where Y-gun, Thorny- 
croft throwers, and depth-charge tracks 
told the story of her duty. 

It was late in the afternoon. A great 
liner of the early nineties, a vessel that a 
generation ago set new records for speed 
and luxuriousness, lifted her anchor and 
stood down the channel. In the center of a 
group of destroyers we cast off our lines; a 
sudden churning of water under our stern 
and we slid out into the clear. Slowly we 
swung around and headed out of the inner 
harbor at fifteen knots, only a faint quiv- 
ering of the thin steel shell indicating the 
presence of the heavy moving machinery 
that filled the narrow hull. 

There is a monotony in all things, and I 



DESTROYERS 143 

suppose that to the officers and men who 
had innumerable times steamed out of the 
harbor with a convoy it was an old story 
now of small interest. But to me it was 
each time an adventure, and from the 
first storeship convoy I accompanied out 
of the Gironde to the last troopship con- 
voy out of Brest, I always received a thrill 
of anticipation and a vain hope for the 
real adventure which meant an actual 
brush with a submarine. 

On this particular trip, bad weather — 
no worse than much and better than some 
— gave the interest. It was a yellow eve- 
ning and the sun finally settled behind 
thin clouds and flattened on the horizon. 
The sea was oily with a long, smooth swell 
that gave the destroyer a slow, heaving 
motion as we cut the water at a twenty- 
knot speed. Behind us the high cliffs of 
Finistere disappeared in evening mist. On 



144 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

our port beam the darkened transport 
steamed steadily, silently, and without 
perceptible movement. Soft stars cau- 
tiously appeared like white dust-flecks in 
the darkening blue. 

I climbed down from the bridge and en- 
tered the passage to the wardroom where 
a dim blue light brightened automat- 
ically as I shut the outer door. In the 
wardroom, safe behind closed port shut- 
ters, electric lights gleamed against white 
enameled bulkheads. The ward-room ex- 
tends athwart ships. It is the living-room 
and dining-room, a simple white steel cell, 
furnished with table, chairs, desk, a book- 
case, and a couple of divans at either end. 
Forward, extending amidships, is a nar- 
row passage, on each side of which are the 
small rooms of the officers, and at the far 
end is the bathroom, if a single shower 
deserves the name. 



DESTROYERS 145 

Colored and Philippine mess attend- 
ants were setting the table, and soon after 
we sat down to dinner, the "Captain," a 
commander in the regular Navy, at the 
head, and the Mess Treasm-er at the foot. 
There were eight of us on the Benham, a 
couple more than were required, but all 
the destroyers carried several extra offi- 
cers in order that the men might be 
trained for the new construction building 
at home. Of the eight, four were graduates 
of the Naval Academy — as fine fellows 
as I ever hope to meet anywhere. Three 
were graduates of the short four months' 
Annapolis course, in private life a lawyer, 
a cotton manufacturer, and a student, 
and hailing originally frOm Harvard, 
Yale, and Columbia. I was the eighth. 
Though I live long I can never forget the 
splendid type of American manhood these 
companions represented. 



146 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

After the dinner was cleared away and 
the felt cloth was spread on the table, our 
usual evening began. At eight the deck 
was relieved and a couple of us left the 
warmth and light below for a four-hour 
vigil on the bridge. If the "Duke" and I 
found one evening free, we invariably 
played solitaire in heated competition. 
Wright occasionally afforded music on a 
mandolin borrowed from the steward, or 
we read or studied, or more often talked 
of when the War would end, and how, and 
home. Such was an evening of relative 
calm at sea. They were few. 

We left our convoy at ten in the eve- 
ning, and turning to the northwest, pro- 
ceeded alone to the rendezvous where 
we should assemble with other destroy- 
ers and pick up the incoming convoy. 
Three great convoys were out at sea and 
all nearing France. The last great move- 



DESTROYERS 147 

merit of American troops was nearing port. 

Day dawned late in a gray sky and dis- 
closed an empty, heaving sea. A gale was 
rising and the wind, dead ahead of us, was 
beginning to make our steering difficult, 
for the light high bow of the destroyer 
acted like a sail and tended to blow us off 
our course. By noon a heavy sea was run- 
ning, great gray suds-streaked ranges of 
water that poured over us. With a quick, 
lifting motion our bow reared on each ad- 
vancing wave and then seemed to sink or 
rather fall with the breath-taking sudden- 
ness of an express elevator. The rolling 
also had materially increased and we 
moved from place to place about the deck 
with difficulty. 

Late in the afternoon the sun racing be- 
hind a sky of tawny clouds blinked occa- 
sionally on a maddened sea. On the bridge 
a constant deluge of water poured over us; 



148 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

a good thirty feet we stood above the 
water-line, and the wind, its violence aug- 
mented by our headlong speed, came like 
knife-blades through each crack or aper- 
ture in the bridge. Below decks all was 
heat, cooking, and the reek of fuel oil; 
topside all was water and the terrific 
wind. Just before sunset a huge cross- 
wave carried away the motor dory. The 
pace was too fast; we were well ahead of 
the rendezvous; at dusk we turned our 
stern to the gale and at eight knots rolled 
slowly before it. In the course of these few 
hours we later discovered that we had had 
much ammunition torn away out of the 
racks, and just before we turned, another 
big sea had smashed in our motor sailer. 
Incidentally, this and the motor dory 
were our only boats. 

The wardroom was awash with about 
six inches of water that had leaked in 



DESTROYERS 149 

at some place — a dirty flood in which 
floated cigarette stubs, cigar butts, and 
matches from capsized ash-trays, a couple 
of old magazines and the "Duke's" deck 
of playing-cards. With a five-second ca- 
dence the destroyer rolled with a motion 
that slopped the dirty flood from side to 
side like a wave. We had racks on the 
table and the "boys" made an attempt to 
serve dinner, but it was useless, and after 
half the food had been mingled with the 
flood, we tried our luck with cups of soup 
and bread-crusts. 

When the weather is lively there is little 
going to bed on a destroyer, and on this 
particular trip, for instance, none of us 
removed his clothes from port to port. To 
wash is an absurd experiment. To try to 
shave is an indication of insanity. 

There were eight ships in the incoming 
convoy. Big fellows they were, all of them. 



150 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

In the wind-swept void of a night of 
superlative blackness we picked up the 
other destroyers of the waiting escort, 
and at about midnight I suddenly felt a 
vibration shivering through our slim hull. 
Out of the lightless night, through a sub- 
marine-infested sea, for a distance of three 
thousand miles these great ships with 
their priceless cargo of human freight had 
steered their certain course to the ren- 
dezvous, and we, as confident of our posi- 
tion as a man on a familiar street-corner, 
waited for them on a tiny patch of storm- 
swept Atlantic, and met them. 

I went on the bridge at four in the 
morning. The increased vibration some 
hours before told me that we had "made 
contact" and were moving at increased 
speed. The officer of the mid-watch 
pointed out the ships of the convoy 
through his night-glasses, but for five 



DESTROYERS 151 

minutes I could see nothing until my 
eyes became accustomed to the darkness. 
Then, one by one, I discovered the almost 
indefinable low, black objects ahead and 
to the right, now vaguely visible, now lost 
with the motion of the sea. There was not 
a gleam of light; there was no sound but 
the roar of the wind behind us. 

Another day dawned gray and lifeless. 
I was wet with salt water, and choked 
with the reek of back drafts of fuel-oil 
vapor from the stacks and the smoke of 
cooking from the galley. Also for two 
hours I was seasick. Why dwell on that.^^ 
Happily I have been seasick but four 
times in all. But it is enough to make me 
understand many things. 

Camouflaged beyond recognition, the 
transports lunged and lifted wet bows 
and shook the water from their lower 
decks. In double lines four wide they 



152 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

proceeded, destroyers on either flank and 
behind them, and the smoke of another 
destroyer far ahead. Running now at 
twenty-three knots before the gale, there 
was a sense of speed that I have never 
elsewhere experienced. A great copper pot 
of hot, thick, black coffee was brought up 
to the bridge, and a huge tin cup of it put 
me on my toes again. 

Day was well established, and between 
breaking, flying clouds now and then 
showed patches of blue. We were steam- 
ing at twenty-seven knots to take position 
ahead of the convoy. There was the Mon- 
golia, the great transport on which I had 
come to France. It was the first time I had 
seen her since. As we tore up behind her 
I remembered another morning when I 
came on her bridge at dawn and looking 
down saw the waiting destroyers dashing 
about us. A thrill had shivered through 



DESTROYERS 153 

me, a wave of emotion — inwardly I 
blessed them, and the men crowded at 
the rail and cheered the destroyers as 
they rocked past, and wondered how they 
lived and how such ships could endure. 

Rolling and pitching through a smother 
of flying spray we tore past the two out- 
board ships of the convoy. Clinging to 
a stanchion I watched the high, distant 
decks brown-packed with soldiers. Small 
part I was playing, but how the realiza- 
tion that I was *' among those present" 
thrilled me that gray morning. 

By noon it was gloriously bright and 
the sea was going down. On the horizon 
was the smoke of the other convoys. In 
the wardroom we counted the troop ca- 
pacity of the various ships of the three 
convoys, all of which an hour later were 
in full view at one time — it showed a 
total of forty-two thousand men. On the 



154 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

Leviathan alone were probably at least 
a fifth of all. About thirty destroyers 
composed the several escorts; destroyers 
from Brest and a bunch from Queenstown 
— American destroyers, all. There were 
about twenty-eight troopships in the 
three convoys. 

Another day and the sun rose in a 
cloudless sky out of France; as we picked 
up the familiar shore, the troopships 
strung out into a long single file, and with 
destroyers on either side passed through 
the mine-field and entered the harbor. 
Overhead two long, yellow dirigibles gave 
us escort, and a flock of seaplanes soared 
far up in the sky watching the depths of 
the blue water. 

A coastal convoy of twenty-six freight- 
ers was standing out of the harbor as we 
neared and swung slowly south past the 
great crags th^t rise from the sea at the 



DESTROYERS 155 

south. The blue of sky and sea, the flags 
and camouflage, the number of the ves- 
sels, and the faint burst of wind-blown 
music from military bands on the trans- 
port decks, made it a day never to be for- 
gotten. 

It was practically the last great convoy, 
although we dared not even dream that 
the end would come so soon. 



VI 

HOMEWARD-BOUND 

First to reach the coast of France after 
the declaration of war, the fleet of con- 
verted yachts first sailed for home follow- 
ing the armistice. During the long month 
following the suspension of hostilities the 
wide harbor of Brest presented a scene of 
restless inactivity. The war was ended. 
The surrender of the German Navy made 
further sea warfare an impossibility. Af- 
ter months of hard and monotonous sea 
duty the first thought of almost every 
man was of home. 

Then came the announcement that the 
yachts were to return, and that they 
would be followed shortly after by the 
several torpedo boats and the coal-burn- 
ing destroyers. For weeks the men had 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 157 

been sewing the "homeward-bound" pen- 
nants; a few days of hectic labor landing 
depth-charges, Y-guns and ammunition, 
and taking on board stores, and the little 
fleet was ready for its thirty-five-hundred- 
mile voyage. 

The yachts had played a very vital part 
in our naval activities on the coast of 
France. At the outbreak of the war the 
relatively few available destroyers were 
rushed to England, and to the yachts fell 
the duty of the patrol and escort along the 
French coast. With the British fleet guard- 
ing the gates of the north and the French 
fleet on similar duty in the Mediterra- 
nean, the full burden of the French coast 
fell to the yachts, and, later, to the de- 
stroyers, which were from time to time 
assigned to these waters, but which were 
still inadequate numerically even at the 
close of the war. 



158 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

Designed for summer seas and short 
runs between sheltered harbors, these 
frail pleasure vessels, stripped of their 
luxurious furnishings and equipped with 
guns and depth charges, had fought the 
submarine from the rocky coast of Finis- 
tere across the stormy Bay of Biscay 
south to the Spanish line. Much credit 
goes unquestionably to the destroyers, 
but to the yachts belongs credit in per- 
haps even greater measure because of 
their physical unfitness for the service 
they so valiantly performed. 

It was a gray morning and frequent 
rain squalls rode in from the sea on the 
chilling wind. Piled up from the harbor's 
edge, rising in row on row of winding 
streets of slate-roofed, gray-stone build- 
ings, the city terminated in the slender 
spire of the cathedral. At its feet the an- 
cient fortress guarded the harbor. For 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 159 

generations the eyes of sailors had seen 
the city unchanged by passing years; but 
never in its long history, which began in 
Roman days, had the eyes of the city 
gazed out upon such a scene as the harbor 
presented in these last weeks which fol- 
lowed the war. 

Along the sheltering lee of the break- 
water, a great fleet of American vessels 
extended from the shore to the break- 
water's end. Here were gathered many 
of the transports, strangely painted in 
confusing camouflage of white, gray, 
blue, black, and green; from great buoys 
the destroyers, knife-like hulls of steel, 
their backs bristling with funnels and 
slender masts, swung in groups like 
strange water insects. Here, too, were the 
yachts, graceful despite their shorn bows 
and overladen decks, aristocrats in battle 
gray. Beyond the breakwater, in the outer 



160 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

harbor, were huge Hners whose decks 
so recently had swarmed with khaki- 
clad legions. Everywhere countless motor 
launches, manned by blue-clad, white- 
capped sailors, darted and circled. The 
harbor was alive with vessels. 

Of all the yachts, the Christabel was 
the smallest, the oldest, and the slowest of 
the fleet. Yet on her gray funnel a white 
star, her mark of honor, recalled, to those 
who remembered, the story of her battle 
with the German submarine U-56 which, 
shattered by the Christabel's depth- 
charges, sought desperate refuge in a 
Spanish port, where it was promptly in- 
terned for the duration of the war. Built 
in 1893, the Christabel boasted of two 
hundred and forty-eight tons and a 
length of one hundred and sixty-four feet 
over all. For the first year, immediately 
following her trip across the Atlantic, she 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 161 

saw continuous service without overhaul 
or repair. And on that gray morning she 
was ready for her long return. 

I am perhaps most interested in the 
Christabel because of her brave history 
and because it was to her that I was as- 
signed for my homeward passage, but the 
other yachts of the homeward-bound fleet 
deserve equal mention. In the second di- 
vision, to which the Christabel was at- 
tached, were also the May, the Rem- 
lik, and the Wanderer. The first division 
comprised the Vidette, Corona, Sultana, 
Emeline, and Nokomis. Both divisions 
sailed on the same morning and both di- 
rected their course to New York by way 
of the Azores and Bermuda. 

There was a sudden burst of cheering 
from the Bridgeport, the big gray repair 
ship of the base. Slowly, through the clus- 
ters of vessels, the yachts of the first di- 



162 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

vision stood out of the harbor. One by one 
they passed through the lane of open wa- 
ter, their crews swarming on the decks, 
hundred-foot homeward-bound pennants, 
slender red, white, and blue ribbons, loop- 
ing and curving on the breeze from the 
trucks of their mainmasts. From every 
vessel cheers sped them on their way; sig- 
nal boys in syncopated semaphore flicked 
red and yellow words of bon voyage from 
the waiting to the departing; whistles sa- 
luted their outgoing. 

Two hours later came the signal for the 
departure of the second division. Slowest 
of all, the Christabel was to lead our pro- 
cession. On the long journey it was she 
who would set the pace. Our moorings 
were cast off; the bells of the telegraph 
jangled in the engine-room; on the upper 
deck forward of the pilot-house I stood 
with the captain and several of the other 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 16S 

officers. As we gathered way the sinu- 
ous pennant on our mainmast snapped 
smartly along the breeze at right angles to 
our course. We turned the end of the break- 
water. The whaleback of a French subma- 
rine passed us and recalled the days that 
were gone. Slowly we turned to the west. 
The harbor, a great circular lake, lies 
behind the rocky cliffs through which the 
narrow entrance passes straight to the 
sea. As we stood down the channel the 
town slid slowly behind the outjutting 
cliffs. My thoughts held only pleasant 
memories of the weeks that I had passed 
in the shadow of the ancient city, but in 
my heart was a deeper happiness, and al- 
ready I began to estimate the probable 
duration of our passage and anticipate 
that morning or evening, as it might be, 
when the low coast of America would rise 
against the sky of my own country. 



164 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

Two great vessels were entering the 
harbor as we passed out to sea. Sleek, in a 
fresh coat of gray, the Leviathan towered 
above us. High up above the precipice of 
her side deck upon deck piled incredibly 
aloft; and still beyond, the monstrous 
triple stacks pointed skyward. From her 
rails hundreds of small white faces peered 
down on us, and I believe we all felt a 
pleasure in the thrill of our adventure 
which became visualized by this absurd 
comparison. 

The entrance widened. On the left 
great rocks, strange shapes in wave-worn 
stone, outcropped from the sea like giant 
bathers around whose bodies showed the 
ominous white of breaking surf. On the 
right the high cliff turned northward. 
Here were the white towers of Saint- 
Mathieu and beyond, low-lying Oues- 
sant. 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 165 

It was a gray day, with a heaving dull- 
green sea and a steady wind from the 
southwest that heaped an occasional wave 
over our restless bow. A month's sea voy- 
age is a long prospect and the first day 
was quickly passed in completing our 
final preparations. Built primarily for 
pleasure cruising in smooth waters, the 
discomforts that were to await us became 
soon apparent, for by midnight the fre- 
quent seas shipped aboard began to perco- 
late through the decks strained by the 
wear and tear of long months of arduous 
service, and a fine drip of salt water, im- 
possible to check, soon soaked the ofii- 
cers' cabins and crews' quarters, wetting 
clothing and bedding, and driving the 
officers to restless sleep on the pitching 
deck of the ward-room. 

For two days the weather steadily in- 
creased, and on the afternoon of the third 



166 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

day the barometer began to joggle down 
to depths that augured badly for our 
progress. Four hundred miles off the coast 
of Spain in a rising gale may be fun for 
liners, but as I looked out over the great 
azimuth of the sea cresting in racing 
waves, suds-streaked and breaking white 
into spume that was flung like; blizzard 
gusts of snow before the gale, and watched 
the slender hulls of our three companions, 
now lost between the seas, now rising high 
on a crest, red bilges showing as they 
rolled, I thought of Gonzalo's remark: 
*'Now would I give a thousand furlongs 
of sea for an acre of barren ground." 

Night shut in with a single yellow 
gleam of light that was extinguished like a 
candle. Against our frail pilot-house the 
wind hammered with battering blows. 
Now and then, as a sea met the Christabel 
broad on her bow, there was a shock of a 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 167 

collision, and, if at that instant we were 
not clinging fast, we were slung helpless 
across the deck to crash with a mess of 
other things adrift against the opposite 
bulkhead. In the half -lee of the pilot- 
house I stood my watch, deluged by head- 
long seas thrown up by our bow and flung 
high above us. Through the darkness of 
this mad, wet, swinging world I could see 
now and then the lights of the May on our 
port beam and the emerald gleam of her 
starboard running light, and far astern 
the masthead lights of the Remlik and the 
Wanderer plunged and lifted, appeared 
and disappeared, like sea fireflies, 
i It was about eleven when the quarter- 
master at the wheel turned and flung to 
the captain and two of us who were with 
him in the pilot-house, the pungent sen- 
tence, "The wheel 's jammed. Sir." In the 
half -second which followed I realized with 



168 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

vivid intensity that extreme peril was at 
hand. Slowly we swung into the deep 
trough of the seas and a second later a 
wave struck us on the beam with a shock 
that seemed capable of crushing us. The 
impact was terrific. Then, slowly, the elec- 
tric lights died low, the glowing fila- 
ments suffused a dull pink light, and all 
was darkness. At the same moment the 
door of the pilot-house was flung open 
and on the rush of wind that followed I 
caught the words of a sailor who was 
shouting that something in the side of the 
after-deck house was smashed in, the en- 
gine-room was flooding, and the dynamo 
was under water. 

Happily, the steering-gear was cleared 
by the shock of another sea; we again 
headed slowly into the gale, and the 
pumps disposed of an inconvenient couple 
of tons of sea water. A door and window 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 169 

in the after-deck house, which the sea had 
torn away and through which the waves 
were pouring, were barricaded with mess 
tables from the crew's galley and once 
more the electricity made light and signal- 
ing and radio communication possible. 

In the next two hours other seas tore 
away the ladder from the main deck to the 
pilot-house and snatched a motor boat 
from its lashings and cast it far astern of 
us. It was a wild, sleepless night, and 
when in the early morning the barometer 
began to steady, we thanked fortune that 
things had been no worse and began to 
have thoughts of food and sleep. 

There is a wild and terrifying majesty 
in a storm at sea ; but I think the aspect of 
the sea in the several days immediately 
following is even more impressive. With 
the moderating of the wind, the rapid suc- 
cession of the waves lengthened into a 



170 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

long, unending sequence of mighty swells. 
Under a brightening sky, through which 
came fitful bursts of pale sunshine, the 
leaden ocean seemed to be moving rapidly 
to the east, great, even, smooth ridges of 
water stretching from horizon to horizon 
and following each other like ranks of in- 
fantry. Slowly the yachts mounted each 
swell, dipped over its summit, and slid 
down into the broad valley beyond. And 
hour after hour the interminable progres- 
sion of swells passed beneath us. 

At noon each yacht reported to the flag- 
ship by hoists of multicolored signal flags 
the position and the coal and water ex- 
pended and on hand, and by night the 
glittering blinker lights on the yardarms 
spelled in dots and dashes of lights the 
words of our communications. 

In the storm which we had passed 
through, a quantity of sea water had 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 171 

seeped into our fresh-water tanks and for 
the rest of the trip to the Azores we drank 
brackish water and none for the last 
thirty-six hours, when even that was gone 
and our condenser was shut down for lack 
of coal. All the food was more or less 
spoiled and the condition of the living- 
quarters below decks was indescribable. 
But most serious was our coal consump- 
tion, which had been so increased by the 
strain required to buck the storm and by 
two days' extra steaming which the bad 
weather had required, that forty-eight 
hours before reaching Ponta Delgada, our 
objective in the Azores, we were forced to 
pick up a line from the May and, with 
banked fires under our old Scotch boilers, 
to proceed ignominiously under tow. 

I shall never forget the last night of the 
eventful first "leg" of our "homeward- 



172 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

bound." The warmth of summer had set- 
tled over the December sea. Very distant 
in a faintly misted sky the stars again ap- 
peared. Then, far off on the low black rim 
of ocean, winked an elusive point of light, 
a lesser star resting on the sea. We had 
made our "landfall"; broad on our star- 
board bow was the distant flash of the 
lighthouse on the eastern coast of the 
island of San Miguel. 

Night paled and dawn flamed up from 
the sea, touching the western clouds with 
a brush of rose; up-pom-ing from below 
the horizon waves of incandescent saffron 
the sky deepened into blue. White planets 
and a thin white strip of brittle moon de- 
fied the day, and lingered in the sky. Up 
from the fringe of surf the smooth, green 
volcanic hills of San Miguel lifted from 
the sea on our right, high Mount Pica 
cloaked in a mantle of purple clouds. 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 173 

Ahead, the town of Ponta Delgada, be- 
hind the breakwater, clung to the shore 
Hke a pile of gleaming shells upcast on the 
beach. 

We neared the entrance. Beside us the 
gray graceful yachts of the first division, 
whom we would have beaten in despite 
their head start, if the Christabel's coal 
had lasted, steamed with us. The harbor 
was cluttered with vessels. Here were 
other yachts from Gibraltar and the 
Mediterranean, our own divisions, rev- 
enue cutters and gun-boats, sub-chasers, 
colliers, freighters, and at the entrance 
the squat monitor Tonapah. It was very 
gay and warm and restful after the past 
few hectic days. 

For three days we lay in the harbor fill- 
ing our bunkers with coal and our tanks 
with fresh water, and in the spare hours 
wandering through the clean old town 



174 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

with its narrow streets of plaster houses 
tinted soft blue, pink, green, or yellow, 
and out into the fertile green country be- 
yond, where long high walled fields and 
gardens reached far up the smooth, steep- 
domed hills almost to the windmills 
which perpetually waved thin sailed arms 
high above all. During these days Ameri- 
can bluejackets swarmed everywhere, and 
the interest displayed by the surprising 
majority in the natural and historical 
points of interest recalled similar impres- 
sions of like nature which have convinced 
me that to "join the Navy and see the 
world" is no empty phrase for the right 
kind of a boy. 

In three short days we were ready for 
the second and longest leg in our journey, 
the run to Bermuda. In the smother of a 
windy rain squall, we stood out of the 
harbor and by twilight the great cliffs and 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 175 

conical volcanic mountains of the island 
had sunk beneath the horizon. In two 
weeks we expected to reach Bermuda, 
gauging our speed by that of the Christa- 
bel and further qualifying our progress 
by the fact that it would be necessary to 
tow her for a number of days. 

There was but little incident to break 
the monotony of the long days that fol- 
lowed except the routine of our duties. 
For the most part, the weather was calm, 
but the yachts rolled heavily in the con- 
stant swells and sleep was difficult and the 
cooking and serving of meals a precari- 
ous operation. During my long hours on 
the bridge I watched the gulls that fol- 
lowed us on our passage, soaring and 
floating like swift white slivers of cloud 
by day, and by night like ghostly bats 
passing and repassing above us, gray 
shadows in the moonlight. 



176 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

A great moon, that waned slowly as the 
nights passed by, lighted the sea. There 
were frequent squalls of rain and the sky 
by day or night was a constantly shifting 
setting of cumulous or nebulous cloud 
manes. From these high mountains, the 
moon burnished its path on the shifting, 
heaving ocean, racing from cloud to cloud, 
star-accompanied, in feverish haste to ful- 
fill her nightly run. The green and red 
gleam of the running lights, the white 
beacon at the masthead and the yellow 
glow of the binnace, these and the moon 
and stars lighted our way. 

At times during the long hours of the 
midwatch the blinker of the May, in dia- 
mond glittering flashes, spelled out to us 
fragments of "press news" caught by her 
wireless, the chronicle of the doings of our 
distant and busy world of which we were 
once a part, but from which we were now 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 177 

far removed, and the happening there 
seemed of but Httle consequence to us. 

Each day at noon the clocks were set 
back from fifteen to twenty minutes and 
by that much we all felt the nearer home. 
Never in those months at sea, have I been 
able to forget "what time it is now at 
home," and French time was always dis- 
torted to me by just the five hours' dif- 
ference between it and the hour at home. 

Christmas morning dawned in an al- 
most cloudless sky. It was warm and in 
the soft air was the earthy fragrance of 
land. The sea was calm, and when I came 
on deck in the first gray light that comes 
an hour before sunrise, we were steaming 
slowly through the still water with the 
low shore of Bermuda on our bow. 
Slowly, the light welled up and touched 
the thin clouds in the east. The pale sky 
became a soft emerald that faded imper- 



178 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

ceptibly into blue with ribbons of flame 
that laced across it. 

Through a calm, milky-blue ocean, past 
guiding buoys that marked our channel, 
through the narrow cut in the island's rim 
we steamed to the harbor and dropped our 
anchor under the walls of St. George's. 

Two days later we stood north again. 
Our original orders had directed us to sail 
for New York, but at Bermuda had come 
new orders assigning the yachts to vari- 
ous ports along the eastern coast. It was a 
disappointment to all of us, for both men 
and officers had anticipated our entrance 
to our greatest seaport, and had held the 
faint hope that some recognition for the 
long months of arduous service that had 
been performed would be given to us. But 
such could not be, and on the third day the 
May and the Remlik left us on their way 
to Norfolk, and the Christabel and the 



HOMEWARD-BOUND 179 

Wanderer began to buck a rising gale off 
Hatteras with bows pointed straight for 
New London. 

From a summer sea we passed rapidly 
into the cutting winds and cold waters of 
the north. Wind-and-rain clothing, heavy 
boots and knitted socks and scarfs began 
to appear. Through a long day and night 
when icy spray, hail and stinging rain 
swept the bridge with its machine-gun fire, 
we stood our watches, warmed and spirited 
with the thought of rapidly nearing home. 

In a dark night, varied with squall 
clouds and hurried gusts of snow, the 
lookout in our foretop gave cry of "land," 
and soon after the flash of Montauk light 
was visible from the deck. All night the 
ship was alive with activity. No one 
seemed able to sleep and there was an 
endless washing, and pressing of clothing 
and uniforms. 



180 A YEAR IN THE NAVY 

At dawn we swung into the broad open- 
ing between Montauk Point and Block 
Island and a few hours later our anchor 
dropped in the dark water of the Thames. 
It was a quiet homecoming. No whistles 
greeted us; no throng of spectators saw 
our arrival. Silently, as they had labored 
in the long months of war, the yachts re- 
turned. But if there was no studied wel- 
come, the familiar shores of our own land 
and the houses and buildings of an unmis- 
takable American city told us that we 
were home again. 

For the last time we dropped anchor, 
and lowered the " homeward-bound." 



THE END 



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